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Kroos and Tymoshchuk, who has a cannon. Müller was seen pleading with him, and apparently he just repeatedly shook his head.
Forgot about that, thanks. Still, Robben did take (and miss) that penalty against Dortmund.
Yeah, I was half-expecting Gomez to take it. He is usually ice on spot kicks.
#6 was apparently shot in Instagram.
#7 and #9 are ridiculous.
Apparently Petr Cech had a two-hour DVD containing every penalty Bayern has taken since 2007 which he studied prior to the game.
"We haven’t won with those players, so I don't think it’s going to hurt us."
Truth hurts.
Looks like Liverpool's new Sporting Director is... Louis van Gaal.
Yesterday we had the 10 best (non-EPL and other major teams) goals, today the 10 Worst Misses. Featuring Robbie Findley!
I wonder if there's any hay to me made in looking not only at what a guy's tendencies are overall, but also in different situations. For example, Frank Lampard is probably the guy I've seen take the most penalties over the last few years. He seems to be pretty good at mixing up his spots. He'll go left, right, and into the roof of the net right down the middle like he did in the shootout on Saturday.
What I'd want to know is if he has a favorite or most reliable spot he'll usually aim for when it's a high pressure penalty (e.g. CL final) and then he's happy to have a crack in different spots under less intense circumstances (e.g. pushing a three-goal lead to four against a relegation candidate).
Even someone like Lampard, who has been playing at the highest level for a long time, has only taken three or four "high leverage" penalties in his career (two CL finals, vs. Portugal in the 2006 WC, maybe one in Euros). The very small number of observations and the length of time they are collected over would make me very wary of drawing conclusions.
I'm pretty sure this means that they won't get a top manager. The chains of command can get blurred when a manager is put into that post, and it doesn't get any better with van Gaal's reputation for being opinionated and domineering. So I'll guess Martinez then.
Agreed if you're defining high leverage as the competition and not the context of the game. A PK in the World Cup is nice, but just that description alone tells you nothing. If it was a 2-0 game that England was winning, or in the 5th minute, where's the leverage? I'd say any PK in a tie game or to tie a game after say, 60 minutes is a high leverage situation, regardless of the competition. You're then changing the outcome of the game and the styles of play of both teams with that goal. That's the definition of game changing. I also would include any PK in major competitions (professional and national continental competition, WC, rivalry friendlies) to widen the sample size, because a player is more likely to go with his best shot in that situation.
Though he has acted in that role for Chelsea, so I would think the study you suggest would be worthwhile, even if it only gave you a marginal increase in data on one of the five takers.
I suspect the biggest thing it does for the keeper is give him confidence to dive in one direction or the other. It's such a desperate act you need to go all in and if you wind up looking ridiculous so be it, but you can't go half hearted because that means you don't cover as much ground.
Didn't mean to imply he was. I started that part talking about Lampard in particular but then went into talking about players in general, should have changed "England" to "a player's team."
Agreed, but a team and keeper still need to gameplan against those that do take them. Knowing the tenancies of three guys is pretty good in the scheme of things. If the guy still scores, well, what can you do. You played the odds and lost. It happens.
Luiz Adriano (SHAKHTAR DONETSK v Metalurg)
I was surprised at the stadium--it looked to be indoors, and turf (due to the blue border around the pitch), and not what I remember from Shakhtar's games in the Champions League. But the youtube caption says Cup of Ukraine, 2012, and some googling shows that was played at the Olympic Stadium in Kiev, which supposedly has natural grass. (And is where the Euro final will be played.) I guess the blue surface threw me off.
...in three years.
Money quote:
Yeah, #### that team for choosing to finish 4th.
Why not bump a team that gets bumped out like Spurs to the very 1st qualifying round and let the chips fall?
I'm also very much in favor for letting the Europa League winner into the Champions League the following season--not into the group draw, but maybe an early qualifying round. Would make the pursuit of that title pretty important (which is what everyone always seems to be saying is the problem with the Europa League title).
In many ways, that's a fate worse than getting bumped. Qualifying starts in late June or early July, a burden in any year but especially this year as the Euros don't end until July 1st. In Tottenham's case, that would probably mean several of their top players would have had almost no break before their club season kicked off again. Tack that onto a team that ran out of gas in March and finished the season wearily (again), and it starts to look like a bit of a poisoned chalice. Also, starting that early would scupper the value of any player the club planned to sell in the summer if he was immediately cup-tied for the biggest tournament in club football.
I am much happier to have Spurs play in the Europa League, especially if Harry deigns to take it seriously. It is a terrific opportunity to blood in some of the younger players and keep the fringey first teamers match fit, but hopefully not all at once this time. I am not holding my breath, as intelligent squad rotation does not appear to be something that will happen during the Redknapp Era.
I think the last qualifying round would be fair. Chelsea gets to go straight into the group stage.
If it's a choice between extremes, I'm even more in favor of telling the CL winner to go pound sand if they can't be bothered to qualify for the following season's competition on the merits. I don't get the obsession with having the holder in the tournament come hell or high water. I think the last club to win consecutive European Cups was Liverpool, and that was in the 70s. Certainly no club has done it in the era of big television money.
So who cares? Isn't this whole thing nominally about having the best teams in Europe go at it hammer and tongs? Chelsea was one of those best teams this year. They aren't any more. Big deal. Nobody can take this year's trophy away from them just because they sputtered domestically.
The solution that I think would be most equitable is to have a non-qualifying CL winner enter the final CL qualifying round with the Europa League winner. That way no team that actually earned their corn gets screwed by the goalposts moving at the 11th hour.
Milan in 1989-90. No one has retained the Champions League since the creation of group stages in 1992.
The old way, restricting entry to Champions and the holders, is infintiely prefeable to allowing 3rd and 4th place teams finishing 20 points behind the winners to enter, but there's no going back now we have this cash cow.
And letting a 4th placed team in has less merit than letting the holders in. I despise Chelsea and all they stand for, but their achievement in winning this thing is far more impressive than finishing 4th in the EPL. A Champion should be allowed to defend its title.
It was, but now it's about making money, and Chelsea brings in more money.
The stadium has been completely rebuilt for the Euros (in a very long, drawn out, and allegedly corrupt process), and looks completely different from when I saw Dynamo play there in the mid-80s.
My favorite factoid about it is that its original name was the "Red Stadium of Trotsky". That didn't last long.
More history here.
Based on what we see from teams in the Europa League I think it's a safe bet that a chance at reaching the group stage of the Champions League would be viewed very positively.
You sure about that? Chelsea gets paid more money, I'll grant you that.
It's an even safer bet that said chance would be viewed even more positively if it meant starting your season in mid-August instead of early July.
Well yeah, I don't dispute that. My point is that if you ranked them the choices would be;
1. Entry to Group Stage
2. Entry at some Qualifying Round
3. Europa League
So while the Europa League won't be as good as the Champions League for Tottenham's bottom line next season, I think there's a good chance it will be better for the club's longer-term development. Especially if they manage to retool a bit this summer and can make another concerted effort at the top three in 2012-2013.
If we're talking about things that would never happen, giving the domestic Cup winners along with the league champion a CL place would be fun. It'd be an incredible shot in the arms to all the domestic Cups.
The Louis van Gaal to Liverpool rumor is far from a done deal, at least based on what I've read. Not sure why The Guardian ran with such a sensationalist headline, but that appears to be their wont. This morning I read that van Gaal still has some managerial hopes. I'd think it would be an awkward situation for the new manager to have van Gaal 'above' him.
The Di Vaio signing is nice because more talent in MLS is never a bad thing, but it doesn't help the stigma of MLS as a retirement farm. Personally I don't have a problem with it, get the best players you can, period. The salary cap ensures that there will always be a lot of young (i.e. cheap) players in the league anyway.
They'll sell more tickets and get better TV ratings than Spurs will.
Selling more tickets makes more money for Chelsea, not UEFA. And I think the TV ratings would be close. Chelsea has a greater international following, but I believe their domestic support is substantially smaller than Tottenham's.
I'm not talking about the domestic side, both teams will do tremendously well in England. Nor am I talking about the money that UEFA makes directly, I'm talking about the money other teams will make, that's the whole reason they play these games these days, for the revenue. They'll sell more tickets on the road (at a higher price if teams do dynamic ticket pricing), putting more money in other team's pockets and they'll get better TV ratings, meaning higher ad fees. Chelsea's more popular and are defending champions, the trickle down effect is and will be greater than it would be for Spurs.
Anyway, the reigning champ having another go at it is a more attractive proposition and an easier sell for the Champions League than whoever ends up fourth in whatever league entering.
The dynamic pricing is a fair point, assuming those clubs would jack up the price for The Holders another tier beyond their usual Champions League price.
Not sure about ad fees. UEFA sells the television rights on a three-year package basis. Isn't it then up to the broadcasters to squeeze as much as they can out of their advertisers? UEFA and the clubs wouldn't see any of that theoretical additional revenue, as far as I know.
Of course it's not there to punish Spurs specifically. But there is definitely a collective chip on the shoulder about England, as reflected by Platini's (half-joking) comment about Juve vs Spurs.
Look, if your league's coefficient is good enough to send four teams to the CL and good enough to produce a fifth team that wins the thing, then that's not entitlement is it? It's merit. All those clubs earned the right to have a crack at winning the pot.
As to the drawing power of various teams, the reality is that in a number of countries (Italy being one), group stage matches against anything other than the likes of Man United and Barcelona are a hard sell. When we were in Milan, clubs like Arsenal, Ajax, Porto, Werder Bremen, etc played to stadia that were half full.
I am pretty sure the payments from UEFA are zero sum, so if Chelsea get more than Spurs would have, other teams will get less. So from that POV, UEFA directly doesn't care. And higher ratings mean better TV deals in the future. That's a pretty clear win for them...
Piffle, most of the whining came from the UEFA. The FA, and everyone not named LFC just gave a collective yawn.
So Italians are the Atlanta Braves fans of soccer?
I didn't know that, that's interesting. But I'm not saying they will get more, I'm saying they will generate more.
Champions League games routinely do not sell out.
PFA to make racist abuse a sacking offence for professional footballers
It's going to be harder to be both a bad player and racist, sadly not anything that affects the likes of Terry and Suarez. Barton better watch out, though.
Holy crap did Man City pay through the nose for that title.
His cross to bear.
Also, Blatter: It's all fun and games until Bayern get hurt.
Doesn't everyone agree that PKs are a crummy way to settle important games? The problem is no one seems to have a better solution. TV probably puts the sword to the idea of a replay and "play 'til you drop" probably doesn't exactly make the players or referees too enthusiastic.
Be that as it may, asking Franz Beckenbauer* of all people, to come up with an alternative days after Bayer took their first ever European PK loss in club history, looks really, really bad.
*who has been a PK defender in the past
Glad they found the stadium this time...
Oh please, Scotland can make the Faroe Islands look good.
Messi gets his 73rd of the season.
Barca had more possession in every single game that Guardiola managed for them.
He also faced 55 different teams during that era, and beat every one of them, bar one.
A singular distinction to go with your European Cup, Chelsea.
Then they're an even match for us! This is a team that has scored 9 goals in 10 games under Klinsmann and will be without Dempsey and Altidore for that game. I originally was going to go but now I'm glad I'm not.
The quality of play between Huddlesfield and Sheffield United has been less than stellar...that penalty kick included.
The 10 selected takers went 4/10. The guys forced into duty went 11/12 with only the second goalie missing...
Also, a consecutive run of 13 penalties converted is pretty impressive.
I wondered if the keepers wore themselves out--there were some good kicks in there (and plenty of weak ones by the selected 10) but the keepers seemed to have less spring.
Penalties are always brutal for the loser, but especially so here--the keeper who missed the last kick managed to save 2 of the first 3 and was in pretty good position on the 3rd (which missed wide).
Is it a political thing?
(I was joking there.)
I love the Sun. It's like humanities worst impulses put to print.
Also, boobs.
It's a pretty lame reason, but if you want to know why: Here is the answer.
I would be a bit skeptical of Van Gaal as director of football... I think he wants to coach again, and would only take the DoF job at a club he really loves, so Barcelona or Ajax. That's not to say he won't take the Liverpool job, but it will be for the paycheck and not a truly sincere desire to implement his vision. Which he may not be allowed to anyway, as van Gaal is dictatorial and Liverpool seems to chafe at somebody who isn't sentimental, which de Admiraal is certainly not.
De Boer, thankfully, looks to be far more of a van Gaal man than I thought he would be, but I really wish van Gaal had won his power struggle at Ajax. He's the better coach. Cruijff is a visionary, but he's been lazy ever since he had his heart attack.
Boyd or Gomez
LanDo
Johnson - Bradley - Torres
Edu
Castillo - Bocanegra - Onyewu - Cherundolo
Howard
Ideally I'd start both Gomez & Boyd up front because I don't think either would be effective up front alone (kind of like Jozy). I'd take Castillo out & play 3 in the backfield, but I'm not sure if that's feasible with any combination of Onyewu/Bocanegra/Goodson/Parkhurst/Cameron/Castillo/Cherundolo.
I am interested to see how this Edu, Bradley and Jones playing together thing will work and to see if Terrence Boyd is a player.
Oof. Not a great rendition of the National Anthem. Wow.
edit: MAKE IT STOP!
EDIT: Shooty, that makes a bit more sense, but still seems a bit strange. IIRC Torres doesn't have much pace, and it's not like he's Charlie Adam with his range of passing, so playing him there seems to restrict him and the team.
Then it's the US anthem. Which...
Let's just say the stage monitors seemed like they weren't working. Let's just say that...
Guardian MBM gettin Snar-kay!
Getting? Guardian MBM has one mode, which is full snark ahead.
Not snarky. Snar-kay!
Wow Scotland...jeez. That was too easy.
That's just how we roll! (over)
Well, their defending seems to look rather drunken, that's for sure...
There was no defending that. That is literally the best goal Bradley will ever score in his life.
edit: There ya go Scotland!
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