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And I really don't want to meet the Greek football team in a dark alley. That is a scary looking group of dudes.
It's funny that FIFA doesn't consider the corporate logos of Nike and Adidas sponsorships.
I think it's mainly the crest situation. The Polish FA decided they wanted to put their own crest on their shirts instead of the red Polish crest that all Polish national teams wear. The fans revolted, so the FA decided they would wear both.
It actually wouldn't look so bad if they were on each breast and the Nike swoosh in the middle, but that's Nike for you.
Brazil and Holland, on the other hand, almost always have handsome shirts. Yes, I'm including Holland's Euro 88 top in that (I love that shirt). The 2002 editions are the only exceptions. Holland is especially cool because they've had several different manufacturers in the last 40 years or so.
And the promotional picture is the best, too. "This is the jersey, and this is how the jersey looks paired with €300 skinny jeans."
That's FIFA in a nutshell: even when they get it right, they get it wrong.
Are you implying FIFA doesn't take racism seriously? How dare you, sir!
This book I'm reading about Spartak Moscow is kind of interesting. It's an academic book so there's no narrative hook and a lot of talk of gender roles etc. but it's interesting how a club like Spartak could exist and thrive is Soviet Russia.
I would never... limit what I think FIFA doesn't take seriously to only racism.
Jozy has two goals today.
Sigh.
Quevilly just qualified for the Coupe de France final with a 90th minute winner against Rennes.
Thanks. I asked the building I work in for their tix but they seem confused about this game as it wasn't on the original season ticket plan. So I'm kind of in limbo now as I don't want to buy any as i should be getting some free.
Montpellier wins, Man U loses, Borussia Dortmund wins, Juventus win, Ajax wins and Real Madrid are leading early in the second half. How the hell are Man U going to lose to Wigan when they can lock up a title?
So are we getting any more tickets? I need my snobby visit to the Bull Club or whatever it's called.
What was really interesting was that they were so ineffective that Rooney was pulled back into midfield. And then was subbed off for a real midfielder (Nani). Only after Nani came on did they even threaten Wigan.
First really poor game I've seen from Valencia all year. Kept trying to play through the middle instead of that simple wide game that's been so effective all year. Had no impact at all on the game.
I shall do my best!
Why was it nearly impossible to watch the Dortmund-Bayern match legally today? The game wasn't available on ESPN3, and the next time Gol TV will be replaying the match is 2am (not sure why they picked Real Madrid-Athletic/Athletico/whoever for the prime time evening replay). I will be happy to give your club/television station my $$$ to watch this game on demand. I just want that opportunity, because right now I don't have it.
Sincerely,
Mark
PS. This is without a doubt the best soccer gif I've ever seen.
I love it!
My favourite part was that after the match had ended, Robben just spent about 2 mins standing on his own, clapping. He didn't seem to bothered. Rumour has it, he was supposed to sign an extension at the end of the month. I think he's gone.
Wowzers on both of those. Does this mean Dalglish will have more control at Liverpool or is Comolli the first step in cleaning house?
And they weren't at all confused that the keeper is white?
That was quick. Although I guess they had to fire somebody at this point. Comolli's tenure at Liverpool hasn't done much to change my opinion of him. He's a good talent spotter but pretty poor at roster construction. I don't know how much authority he had in negotiating fees, but if he was responsible you'd have to call that a mixed bag as well. Getting 50MM for Torres good. Spending 35MM of that on Carroll bad. Getting one of the best left backs in the league (Enrique) for cheap good. Wildly overpaying for Downing and Henderson bad. Signing Charlie Adam period, very bad.
Of the Comolli signings I can recall off the top of my head, here's how I'd break down his record.
GOOD
Luis Suarez
Jose Enrique
Craig Bellamy
OKAY/JURY'S OUT
Jordan Henderson
Sebastian Coates
BAD
Andy Carroll
Charlie Adam
Stewart Downing
They weren't sure, since Torii Hunter has not yet chimed in on what Manuel Neuer's skin colour is...
It's an old Oliver Kahn joke, that they seem to have decided to resurrect for Neuer.
Although, arguably the original Kahn banana throwing was racist... against Neanderthals...
Wouldn't have seen that coming back in August. Could have gotten great odds, I'd guess.
That makes much more sense.
There is a certain holier-than-thou element in England about racism in football, so they were quick to condemn regardless of the context.
I am going to be in Shanghai for a bit starting on Saturday. If I see Le Sulk, I'll tell him the Primer football geeks say, "hey".
That's a long way to go for a decent fish sauce! Make sure Anelka knows I was never one of the haters, and try to be sincere about it as I totally was. Lousy Chelsea scum.
Who's second guessing him?
The only issue is putting all the onus on Comolli, as we still don't know definitively who was 'behind' the signings. At least publicly, Dalglish has taken responsibility for the signings. There was never any indication of a power struggle, of Comolli bringing in players that KD didn't want. If that's the case, what exactly does that say about Dalglish? Is FSG really going to be comfortable handing another $50 million(*) off to the guy who, like you said, has seen three of his four biggest signings sputter? I'd be curious to know if FSG have started putting out feelers for Rafa. That seems to make some sense, especially if, along with Comolli, FSG are throwing out the Director of Football model.
(*)This is assuming they spend. They've got the new kit deal, and small amounts coming from Milan for Aquilani and from next year's Europa League.
At no point, ever, in Jordan Henderson's entire career, will he ever be worth the 20 million pounds they paid for him. Good to very good players in their prime go for that much or less.
As for Daglish, he's taken the "credit" for deciding on all of the signings, implying that Comolli then went out and got them. Who knows what actually goes on, but taking that at face value means Comolli did the negotiating and, pretty clearly, did it very poorly.
Maybe I should clarify that I didn't mean this thread (or BBTF in general). Just my reaction from grazing dumb media.
I get the feeling Liverpool were locked into a handful of players that they wanted and other clubs sensed Liverpool had no plan B and so really picked their pockets. At the time the Henderson signing confused me the most. I watched 5 or 6 Sunderland games last year and had no recollection of him at all. He's not a bad player, but I still kind of don't get it. Stuart Downing has been much, much worse than I thought. I thought they overpaid but that he was a solid player. He's ended up as the worst of the bunch, and that includes Carroll. Still, Liverpool are a huge club with a lot of resources--they'll be back even if it takes a year or two longer than it should have.
Ah. The media is picking a strange time to criticize him--after a hat trick in a local derby to keep Barca 4 points back.
"Shooty says you're lousy Chelsea scum."
Got it.
Yup. Kiss of death.
I see what you did here!
Is this typical? I know fixtures get moved around a lot based on Cups and such, but I never really pay attention in August - do they start out with everything on Saturdays and move 'em around based on perceived interest, or do they know from July they're going to have Saturdays off all spring? You'd think with the expectation of playing on Tuesdays in Europe that they would have more Saturdays, but maybe they *would* be on Saturdays if they were still in Europe? How often are dates moved midseason, and how much hassle is it?
When I was living in Japan (early 90s), every Giants games was broadcast nationally, and maybe once a week you'd see a game involving two non-Giant teams. Maybe. Sounds kinda similar here - every week MUFC is in a national spot, which makes sense because everyone loves them or hates them. Does the UK do regional telecasts on Saturday, or national? Would something like Wigan vs. WBA ever be shown nationally in March, or is it determined on the fly, like the NFL flexes its Sunday Night spot, based on the matchups and standings, at some midweek point?
It's Sky Sports, 15.00 games on Saturday aren't televised and they will not let Manchester United play there if they can avoid it, which they most often can (in desperate cases by a Saturday lunchtime kickoff).
Step 1) Buy Papiss Cisse
Step 2) ???
Step 3) Profit
Got it?
Ok, serious answer, there isn't a one size fits all solution, other than getting players with high finishing (or heading, but less so). You'll have to look at your squad and set them up to suit their strengths. You probably want to set everybody who doesn't have 16+ long shot ability to not take shots from distance. Playing lots of through balls typically also generates more high quality chances, albeit at the cost of some posession.
Other than that, try asking players with high technical skills to play around the keeper. If you think a player is missing the goal completely too much, ask him to place his shots. If a player is getting beat by the keeper too much, ask him to shoot with power etc.
I just started a new game as Spurs and already won the Champions League in my third season. I'm trying to see if I can get the club reputation past the Spanish giants.
presented without comment
None of them? I know England is roughly the size of Arkansas, but it didn't occur to me that if I were living in, say, Newcastle I wouldn't be able to see my team play. That would kinda suck. Guess Americans are spoiled. Is a Blackburn *ever* on TV outside of the biennial sacrifice to MUFC?
It's a concession the Premier League made to the FA to protect the Football League and lower leagues. If you want to see football on Saturday afternoon you have to go support your local team (or stream a match illegally, or get a foreign channel on satellite, or if you're a Stoke supporter you can just look at livescore.com).
Fenway Sports Group put Francona in charge of Liverpool as well?
In my Spurs game I won the league in 2013-14, improved the team in the offseason, and slumped to 6th in 2014-15. I was very frustrated. Haven't won the Champions League yet.
So my other original question - do "they" move fixtures from Sat to Sun midyear, or was it known last August that MUFC was only on Saturday twice? Who moves them, if they're moved - the club, FA, Sky? All three?
It's also worth noting that the 15h00 rule as interpreted in England means that Sky can't show a game from another country in that slot, which sometimes causes them to begin broadcasts of Liga matches (for instance) 15 minutes into the first half.
The 3 pm kickoff rule is mainly to protect lower league clubs. If United dropped a couple more points and took on City at 3 pm on a Saturday, I firmly believe it would depress the attendance of lower league clubs. I've gone to a couple games, and what people usually do before a game is watch the lunchtime Premier League game, or after they watch the evening Premier League game. Since ticket revenue is the main source of income for lower league teams, they need the legal protection.
That's not actually true. There is a maximum amount of times in a season one club can be on TV after Man U were getting the Tokyo Giants treatment in the early days of the Premier League. So what Sky does now is very sparingly show the big clubs (often only the derbies) until after the New Year, stashing away their appearances until the meat of the season.
Agreed, but I do think there has to be a better solution than the mess they have right now. Personally, I would schedule all lower league games for Saturday lunchtime, and not let any premier league games on before 3pm. People can go support their local teams, and still be back before the PL matches kick-off. Everybody who wants to watch their team on TV can do it. The league/ Sky gets the revenue from broadcasting extra games. It's win-win-win.
Also, there is no requirement for Premier League clubs to play at 3 pm. If they wanted to play at 5 pm then good for them.
Travelling support for the vast majority of lower division ties is limited to people within reasonable driving distance. Nobody is making a 10 hour round-trip for a League 2 match, and the people that are, are those that would leave at 7 if they had to.
If you have support that is willing to put that type of time commitment into a match, you should be comfortable going head to head with the PL anyway. They've apparently already signed up to missing all other matches on that day.
Plenty of people make 10 hour round-trips every weekend, and leaving at 9 am and leaving at 1 are two very different creatures.
Why should the PL be uber alles? One of the great strengths of English football is that it's not Spain where 2/3rds of the population follow two clubs, or countries where reserve sides play in the third division.
Your categorization of the vast majority of lower league ties as being within reasonable driving distance is completely wrong, by the way. That will not be true so long as the major centres of football clubs are London and The North.
I didn't say that most ties ARE within reasonable driving distance. I said that if they aren't, people won't make the trip. Which they don't.
FPH, I think you are underestimating travelling support in the lower leagues in England. The likes of Rotherham are still likely to take more away than are Barcelona.
What kind of incentive would it take to move them off their kick-off time for the last 130 years to a worse time, ####### with their primary source of income? Even if you could find a price which would buy them off, I don't think the clubs would be very happy to confront the fans with the idea.
But this is all solving a non-problem. Few in England would show sympathy for the Prem if they tried to muscle in on Saturday afternoon, underdogs reign in the public opinion and hardcore supporters look down on those that don't travel anyway. Not many would dare to pipe up that they'd love to see Manchester United on TV Saturday 3pm.
And we foreigners have all the TV we want (for truly extortionate fees in Sweden's case).
The incentive is that the PL tells the FA that they are broadcasting the 3pm games, whether they like it or not. If the Football League does not want to go head to head with PL broadcasts, it should be on them to at least make some concessions towards that. They shouldn't be preventing millions of people each weekend from watching their team, or any of the European matches at that time, on TV.
I think Parliament would have something to say about that, as it's illegal.
It's incredible, actually; there's more than I can watch even just with ESPN, FSC and the plethora of Spanish language channels I have around here (Colorado, no GolTV, Fox Soccer Plus, etc.). If you get ESPN3 you get even more (Bundesliga, La Liga, Eredivisie).
Though with cable/satellite tv being the way it is now, it's changing. Supposedly Al Jazeera has the US rights to La Liga and Serie A starting next season, and there's no word on what channel they'll show it on. Just as I was starting to check out some Mexican clubs, a bunch of them went to a new channel, Univision Deportes, that's only on Dish right now. So who knows what other changes are down the road. I suppose whatever happens, someone will always try to put the Premiership on a fairly available tier...
Which of course means it would fit right in with Sky's culture, hard to do on the sly though.
I was going to say that AJ is broadcast on free-to-air, but turns out that network is local to the DC area. Wiki says that their satellite feed is free-to-air (if you have the equipment, since it's not encrypted) but who knows what kind of specialty channel the sports broadcasts might be on.
I don't know if it would work, but it would be entertaining!
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