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Friday, August 04, 2017
OT: New Season August 2017 Soccer Thread
Are you ready for some futbol?
EFL - August 4 (that’s today!). Note that ESPN has taken over the broadcast rights from BeIN and is going to make most games available on ESPN3 including today’s Sunderland loss to Derby County.
EPL - August 11 (Arsenal-Leicester). Also 8/20 is Spurs-Chelsea, that’s a big big game early.
La Liga - August 18
Bundesliga - August 18 (Bayern-Bayer Leverkusen)
Serie A - August 19 (Juventus-Cagliari)
Champions League Playoffs - August 15 - The best of the bunch look to be Liverpool-Hoffenheim, Nice-Napoli and CSKA Moscow-Young Boys
Europa League - August 17 - Everton get Hajduk Split but generally I won’t pretend to be knowledgeable about the teams here.
Also assorted Community Shield type things and a bunch of World Cup Qualifiers get rolling on August 31. This is the penultimate break before the end of qualifying for most places so these are likely to be some very big games (US-Costa Rica September 1). An
Jose is an Absurd Force of Nature
Posted: August 04, 2017 at 08:07 AM | 1192 comment(s)
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Probably that weird hand-twisting-over-his-ear goal celebration thing he did during the World Cup run in 2006. I still don't know what that meant.
Leicester has fired yet another manager.
(reposted for the flip)
That was neat.
In the EPL, most teams are mediocre anyway (relative to the top echelon), so it seems like a good deal for me. I doubt the fans care - they got to celebrate some hardware. Maybe we should ask Marlins fans.
Yes. But only Leicester was willing to sell its eternal soul!
edit: Are we really going to have a serious conversation about soul selling? Because I'm pretty sure only these guys have souls.
Wow, the East has crushed it this year - #5E would host any West team in the Cup as it stands now. Anyone have the record on intra-conference this year? Quite the reversal from seasons past.
Which is oddly specific if that hadn't been the plan all along.Honestly, I think the much more likely scenario is that they play in a nearly empty stadium until they relocate. People here are PISSED OFF, and rightfully so, if the report is true that a consortium of local zillionaires was completely shot down when they approached Precourt and attempted to buy the team and keep it in place.
I've met Alex Fischer, the head of the alleged local ownership group, a number of times via my job (He's on the board of the not-for-profit business I work for) and he's never struck me as a guy who screws around. He's a serious dude - if he says his group made an offer, his group made an offer, despite what Precourt may be claiming.
Subs: Casilla, Nacho, Hernandez, Lucas, Llorente, Asensio, Ceballos.
Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Aurier, Alderweireld, Vertonghen,
Sanchez, Dier, Winks, Sissoko, Llorente, Eriksen, Kane.
Subs: Vorm, Trippier, Rose, Son, Foyth, Walker-Peters, Georgiou.
Spurs are going to get killed. Just missing too many pieces for this game. Looks like a 4-4-2 with Vertonghen at LB? Ugh.
They're saying it's a 4-1-2-1-2 Diamond.
Guess it's Vertonghen at LB.
This ought to be ... something.
That's former Tampa Bay Rowdie Big Sam Allardyce to you!
He's hardly played!
He's done everything to insult the people of Columbus that he can do, short of kicking Urban Meyer in the nuts*. He gutted the club's marketing efforts, and is now pinning 100% of the attendance issues on the city and fans.
(* - I would actually give him $10 to kick Urban Meyer in the nuts.)
True dat ... and he hasn't had much of a pre-season at all ... but all the same, he's looked ... not so hot.
Still, today is a new day ...
Interesting.
BUT-if they can nick an away goal in the first leg, even in a 1-1 draw or a 2-1 loss, I'd fancy they have a chance. A 0-0 1st leg makes things a bit more difficult; a 1-0 win would mean some really ugly, bus-parking soccer in Dublin for the 2nd leg.
Good god--you look at the Spurs lineup, and then the sub list, and... if they escape with a 0-0, they'd be insanely lucky. Son's probably the only sub worth playing who could potentially change the game, although I suppose if Rose could go for 20 minutes he could help late on.
[edit] Ooops ... OG!
They should probably also spend some time campaigning in Wisconsin just to be safe.
This is Spurs we're talking about, after all ...
Still, an excellent day of results for Spurs.
Madrid:
Lose to Spurs
Draw/Lose to APOEL
Draw/Lose to Dortmund
Dortmund:
Win out
This would leave Madrid on 8 or 9 points (depending on the results) and Dortmund with 10. (Spurs, assuming the RM win, would be no worse than 10 points, regardless of their own APOEL result).
To be sure, the APOEL end of that looks... unlikely, but it's a path. If APOEL can get any results from their remaining RM/Spurs games, it helps Dortmund's path to getting through... And should Spurs lose to RM & to Dortmund (which is still very much possible), then that APOEL game might become a must-win to advance, and the pressure would be on...
I mean, I'd rather be where Spurs are than Dortmund, but it's not over yet, by a long shot.
Really, it seems pretty long to me. Seems it like if Spurs beat APOEL they're through, and even if they drop points there it will very likely require Dortmund getting points at Real and probably spanking Tottenham. I mean, it's not 1% chance, but it feels like it's about 10% chance to go through.
(Snicker). That was funny.
Real Madrid - 14
APOEL - 8
Spurs - 7
Dortmund - 4
I'm not saying it'll happen, but APOEL *could* beat Dortmund, and then there's every incentive to park the bus and put 10 men behind the ball against RM. Scrape a 0-0 there and suddenly a win against Spurs could mean getting to the knockout stage.
It's Spurs, so it's natural to figure out ways they could screw this up...
Not going to happen. The final eight are going to be from these ten clubs:
MUFC
PSG
Bayern
Chelsea
Atletico
Barca
Juventus
City
Napoli
Real
Spurs (!)
You know it, I know it, probably the same 10 for next year. It sucks, but it's the way it is. Longshots are not possible. Could a Maribor make the knockouts? I suppose, but they'd get blasted in the round of 16. And with the first three results in, there is no f'n way it's not going to be Spurs and Real out of Group H.
ETA: I guess we can take Atletico out :) I doubt Roma can make the quarters, though, so I'll stick with my nine remaining... Not trying to be harsh, just realistic. APOEL has their point, that's the only one they're going to get.
I thought it was obvious my post was a joke.
Yeah, you don't see that very often in a pro game. Youth soccer, of course.
Messi very rarely takes days off. Chances are pretty good that he'll be playing.
Yup. Played exactly as a raw 18 year GK would. Cheats a lot on cutting down angles. Tries maybe a bit too hard to sweeper-keep. I only saw the highlights and could just tell ManU's goal would end up being something unusual.
But he had some nice saves, and you know something...sometimes you need to play a bold game in goal. Just don't give up too many *unique* goals like that or you'll find yourself out of a job.
Different sport, but sometimes I'll follow an NBA game on the app "theScore" and I'm always confused by the statement "defensive foul on steph curry". I've gotten it backwards so many times that I'm past the point of ever being able to get it right. It's like my brain is playing game theory saying "no, that's how you USED to think it meant".
Oops.
However this is all moot if you're in danger of being relegated. I didn't realize Everton was 16th. He should be moving up the sack race odds for sure.
To me it sounds right. "That's a foul on Soandso" immediately tells me that the foul is being called on Soandso.*
* - It took me longer than I care to admit to understand who "Soandso" was.
I think this is it exactly for me, too. That phrasing omits the word "called" between foul and on, and maybe it's only in wide usage that way in basketball? Anyway, I learned it that way young and still get thrown by the (probably more logical) way the Brits do it.
Don't forget that theScore is Canadian, so there may be some different usage issues there.
Right now, after 3 games, they're dead last in Group E with 1 point and a -4 GD.
At this point, Koeman and Bilic have to be breaking away from the rest of the pack ... West Ham are down 2-0 to Brighton at home at half.
Make that trounced 3-0 by Brighton at home.
Now, if Bilic can survive the weekend, he might get some respite next week since the next match will be against Spurs in the ... well, whatever the hell they're calling the League Cup these days.
Spurs are in a stretch of matches where they play Liverpool, West Ham, United and Real within a 10 day span, Poch is going to run out odds, sods, half-wits, dim-wits, has-beens and never wills against the Hammers in mid-week.
Win that and Palace follows and maybe Bilic moves down the list a little, but since West Ham are playing like a bunch of guys randomly assembled off the street who just met 15 minutes before kick-off, it probably won't last very long ...
I don't mind the idea of calling Shea Groom up, but what is truly baffling to me is the lack of national team attention for Emily Menges. She ought to be the heir apparent to Sauerbrunn, who is still excellent but lost a small step this year, but hasn't gotten any attention at all from Jill Ellis. What more can she do to earn a call up?
It was ugly soccer and terribly reffed, but neither Paul Riley nor McCall Zerboni had a leg to stand on talking about how that stuff shouldn't happen.
Hey, Portland won by escalating. I think they're perfectly consistent!
More seriously, Groom is a very skillful player, who is also a massive PITA. You want to keep your options open :)
They were pretty measured in their comments, TBH. I was surprised at how restrained they were (and other NC players in the mix zone). They mostly seemed to regard it as 'it's legal if you don't get caught' and to respect Portland for playing tough. I would have been livid if I were them, since I think there's a difference between playing rough and playing dangerously, and Portland were on the wrong side of that line in a way that NC wasn't.
Edit: To be clear, I'm not saying that there was a huge difference in the sides, or that Portland committed some grave sin or anything. I put responsibility about 90% on the referee, who could easily have stepped in early to put a lid on things. Portland made a perfectly reasonable decision this year to become a more physical and aggressive team, and it absolutely paid off.
Anyway, I don't mean to let the Thorns off the hook, because we both agree they were the aggressors and the game was worse for it. I guess the broader point I'm trying to make is that Paul Riley, when he was the Portland coach, talked up the beautiful, high-scoring tactical side he was building, but they never quite came to be, to me in large part because the NWSL refs allow too much physicality. Riley adjusted when he went to WNY, to great success. His WNY team used the same playbook in last year's semifinal that the Thorns did in this year's final, I think because Mark Parsons learned the same lesson from Riley. But that loss, and they way the Thorns loss, clearly was a the specific motivating factor for this year's Thorns team, and I think pretty clearly is why they played the physical game they did. That's what I think is rich about their (admittedly fairly tempered) indignation about Portland's play: I really don't think Portland would have played like that if they hadn't been the victim of it from WNY to end ther season last year. That seemed to me directly like a revenge game in tactics and result. (I'm harping on this because I haven't seen it mentioned in any coverage, and I don't know why. except that everyone outside Portland saw the 4-3 semifinal as a poorly reffed thriller, while the Thorns [and their fans like me] saw it as a mugging.)
Second, there are so many things going wrong at Liverpool right now that it's hard to know where to start. There are four categories of problem, IMO: personnel/recruitment, individual errors, collective errors, and tactics. Maybe the can't be separated cleanly, but that's where my brain is at. It's clear that the summer was a bigger miss than I thought. Not getting a competent center back looks really bad now. The lack of a midfielder I can mostly overlook (more on this later), and the attacking corps looks fine to me. Bottom line is that there are several starters who aren't good enough, mostly because the top of the Premier League is so damn competitive.
Then we have those players making mistakes, which, if they're not good enough seems natural. Only so much of this is on the players. Klopp is not putting them in position to succeed. I feel similarly about the collective errors, so let's consider them results of same root issue: players out of their depth. Which, there's a direct line back to recruitment here as well. So.
Finally, there are small but important tactical differences from last year, too. It's obvious from some of the numbers that the press is neither as high nor as hard this year. And if Klopp doesn't have his team pressing high and hard, what's the point of Klopp? I can forgive some of it because I'm sure he had visions of competing on three fronts, so taking your foot off the gas a little to save legs is a defensible idea. But it appears that fraction of a difference is enough to send the whole setup into a tailspin. Either that, or we were more lucky than good last year and now the chickens are coming home to roost.
On a completely unrelated note, can someone give me something to feel cheerful about? Thanks in advance.
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