Football (Soccer) 2018-19

[Malcador]

Hard to escape English fans jerking it over all this (especially the most loathsome, Liverpool ones) so this has been a dark spot for me this week.  But I suppose if you're a top-ish team in a league awash with cash like EPL, things are easier.

[Gorth]

Oh, it get's better. Chelsea and Arsenal are the finalists in the other tournament now. Watch out for spontaneous orgies in the streets

 

[Malcador]

Fans are whining about the costs of everything involved in attending these games.  Not quite sure why they wouldn't expect hoteliers and airlines to jack up their prices for that one day.

[rjshae]

On 1/5/2019 at 5:36 PM, daven said:

How popular is the Premier League in the US? As far as we know in England, it's basically nothing over there.

I follow it, but a lot of matches are basically big money teams beating up little money teams. *yawn* Occasionally there will be an interesting game.

[daven]

I'm back! Man  city to win the league this weekend. Cant believe spurs a d liverpool won their champions league games.anddd... yeah Leicester winning a few years a go was awesome

[Malcador]

2 hours ago, rjshae said:

I follow it, but a lot of matches are basically big money teams beating up little money teams. *yawn* Occasionally there will be an interesting game.

This season a lot of the big money teams have been ****ing it up big time, barring City and Liverpool

[rjshae]

How much are we betting that English fans are about to provide us yet another sublime example of how truly civilized people ought to behave?

[Humanoid]

Given that we (Spurs) been in relegation form for the past few months, it would be an understatement to say my flabber has been gasted. If you offered me this outcome at the start of the season - or hell, during any point of it - I'd have swallowed you whole. Being CL finallists is something I genuinely thought I'd never see in my lifetime. And while I'm obviously happy with the situation, I'd hope the team have higher ambitions than I do. Oh well, we'll see in a few weeks, and I'm genuinely considering a huge hedge bet to take the edge off.

As for the PL, shame about not taking the 3rd place spot that was all but shoved in our faces on the last day, but as all four CL spots (or indeed five it it ends up that way) go straight into the group stage, it makes no difference other than "only" a few million quid in prizemoney. But if this summer window goes the same way as the last one, I'd expect another wave of London riots.

[daven]

I reckon spurs might just have liverpool next week. Too bad I cant watch it cos I'm off to see... alexisonfire in London! Get in!

[Humanoid]

Eh, even disregarding form and fatigue (the few weeks rest is a godsend to Spurs' thin squad), I feel Liverpool's experience in finals should probably carry them through. Their squad is what, 80% carried over from last year's final? That experience is invaluable.

Not going to die wondering though. Will throw a grand or so at Liverpool and if they win, then at least I'll have a new video card or something like that. Fully expecting Arsenal to lift the Europa cup too against a Chelsea team in disarray, earning themselves a cool 60 million or so from CL qualification. That would be a shame. Probably Villa to get promoted too to complete the trilogy of ...sub-optimal results. By that point I'm just being petty though.

[rjshae]

Dang. Looks like it is going to be difficult to watch the 2019 Copa America in the US this summer. I can either watch the spanish-language version on Telemundo Deportes or pay extra for the streaming version on ESPN+. Gooooooooaaaaaallllll....

[Malcador]

Glad for GIroud to add the EL trophy to his collection.  Not bad for a guy everyone keeps lambasting as a donkey :lol:

[Humanoid]

12 hours ago, Malcador said:

Glad for GIroud to add the EL trophy to his collection.  Not bad for a guy everyone keeps lambasting as a donkey

Along with Cazorla, one of the few likeable (ex-)Arsenal players. Ian Wright's a good 'un too.

[Malcador]

6 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Along with Cazorla, one of the few likeable (ex-)Arsenal players. Ian Wright's a good 'un too.

Arsenal has very likeable players, I mean most teams do - barring RM and Chelsea.  Maybe Bendtner was a bit of an ass, but that's what they get for loaning him to Sunderland or whatever

[Humanoid]

So that's the way it goes. Obviously disappointed, but can't say I'm sad or angry or whatever - mostly because it was the wholly expected result and I can be proud of the team for their campaign regardless. Credit to Liverpool who showed why they finished streets above us in the league, for a brief period a few years ago we were basically in the same position, but they showed what shrewd signings can do to transform a team. Didn't watch the match - kick-off was at 5am my time - but that was probably a blessing as I'm not the type to enjoy high-stakes matches that I'm invested in, it usually ends up a torturous experience.

I hope to see us do one better sometime during my lifetime, as long a shot that might be, but if we never even reach this stage again I wouldn't be too surprised either. That might sound a little defeatist, but when I started supporting the team back in the aftermath of the 1998 World Cup, this scenario was already unimaginable. I just hope this summer transfer window is a bit more fruitful than the last one, because as the end of this league season proved, there's only a hair's breadth between maintaining our current status and sinking back into the obscurity of Europa. Bigger clubs like Arsenal and Man Utd can take the hit, we decidedly can't. Both in terms of maintaining profile, and for simple financial reasons, deep CL runs are required to simply keep in touch with the big boys.

 

P.S. Going to buy myself a decent Ryzen system from the proceeds as consolation once Navi comes out.

[rjshae]

No hooligans in sight... apparently. Of course it probably helped that the Madrid bars all closed before the game and there was a small army of ~4,700 Spanish police around the stadium.

[rjshae]

Just watched the U.S. team knock off favored France, 3-2 in the Men's U20 World Cup in Poland. It wasn't really a fluke either; both sides produced some decent chances. Maybe France got a little tired toward the end? Anyway, U.S. takes on Ecuador Saturday in the round of eight.

[Malcador]

Women's World Cup starting tomorrow, so that'll be fun to watch during work (one good thing about not many people caring about it is that they seem less vigilant about taking down streams :P).  Only downside is dealing with annoying Canadians and Americans during it.

[rjshae]

The 2019 WWC in France, and I believe they're the favorite side. At times the U.S. Women have looked a bit out of form the past couple of years, so it'll be interesting to see how they do. The England's women's team is also pretty good this year; maybe they'll show up the men's side?

[Gorth]

I would say at his point, Tottenham is punching under their weight. They are one of he wealthiest clubs in the Premier League, so it's not because other teams have more money to splurge, it's just that Tottenham seems to sit on their purse and spend nothing (never mind a fantastic new Stadium). Unless they change their approach the next 3-4 years and start planning for a more ambitious future (like Liverpool did after FSG took over in 2010 when they were in a much worse position, heading for administration and possible bankruptcy), they will slip back into mediocracy again. Always a lot of potential, never quite living up to the potential.

 

[Humanoid]

2 hours ago, Gorth said:

I would say at his point, Tottenham is punching under their weight. They are one of he wealthiest clubs in the Premier League, so it's not because other teams have more money to splurge, it's just that Tottenham seems to sit on their purse and spend nothing (never mind a fantastic new Stadium). Unless they change their approach the next 3-4 years and start planning for a more ambitious future (like Liverpool did after FSG took over in 2010 when they were in a much worse position, heading for administration and possible bankruptcy), they will slip back into mediocracy again. Always a lot of potential, never quite living up to the potential.

 

It's not like it's a choice to not be bought out, which is what "changing their approach" seems to imply in this context given the references to Liverpool. Until such an event happens, other teams genuinely do have more money to splurge, and that still would be true even without the expenditure of the new stadium. While the club is owned by a billionaire in Joe Lewis, the club is run at arms' length as a pure business, so everything is funded from operational income. And while that still makes Spurs somewhere around the 10th-15th wealthiest club in Europe, they're also still but a clear 6th wealthiest in their own league, with a big gap to 5th. Sure, Arsenal and Utd spend within their means too, but they have the advantage of historically bigger fanbases, paid-up stadiums and all the other nice things that come with a history of greater success.

Now that's no justification for spending nothing of course, but neither is the relative parsimony a surprise to anyone. Sure, TV income is much bigger now than what it was when Arsenal built Ashburton Grove, but the cost of building the stadium itself has been inflated more-or-less proportionally as well. Arsenal did well in the following years to keep their CL spot despite the massively curtailed spending, so I would argue the fair expectation of Spurs would be fairly similar, even if the achievement has become more difficult because of the greater number of clubs competing for the same number of spots. A simplistic but not terribly unreasonable expectation would be to spend the 6th largest amount of money in the league, but with sugar daddies in control of some of the clubs directly below - notably Everton, Wolves and now most of all Newcastle, even that expectation will likely not match reality.

 

The *other* alternative I suppose would be to do a Leeds.

[daven]

Womens world cup has been pretty good. Haven't followed it too much so not sure where all the teams lie in the groupings and that but... USA v England final? That would be good.

[daven]

On 6/7/2019 at 8:24 AM, Humanoid said:

 

It's not like it's a choice to not be bought out, which is what "changing their approach" seems to imply in this context given the references to Liverpool. Until such an event happens, other teams genuinely do have more money to splurge, and that still would be true even without the expenditure of the new stadium. While the club is owned by a billionaire in Joe Lewis, the club is run at arms' length as a pure business, so everything is funded from operational income. And while that still makes Spurs somewhere around the 10th-15th wealthiest club in Europe, they're also still but a clear 6th wealthiest in their own league, with a big gap to 5th. Sure, Arsenal and Utd spend within their means too, but they have the advantage of historically bigger fanbases, paid-up stadiums and all the other nice things that come with a history of greater success.

Now that's no justification for spending nothing of course, but neither is the relative parsimony a surprise to anyone. Sure, TV income is much bigger now than what it was when Arsenal built Ashburton Grove, but the cost of building the stadium itself has been inflated more-or-less proportionally as well. Arsenal did well in the following years to keep their CL spot despite the massively curtailed spending, so I would argue the fair expectation of Spurs would be fairly similar, even if the achievement has become more difficult because of the greater number of clubs competing for the same number of spots. A simplistic but not terribly unreasonable expectation would be to spend the 6th largest amount of money in the league, but with sugar daddies in control of some of the clubs directly below - notably Everton, Wolves and now most of all Newcastle, even that expectation will likely not match reality.

 

The *other* alternative I suppose would be to do a Leeds.

Mike Ashley just bought out Game... so I don't think Newcastle are getting any new players this season... oh and Rafa has packed his bags.

[Malcador]

11 minutes ago, daven said:

Womens world cup has been pretty good. Haven't followed it too much so not sure where all the teams lie in the groupings and that but... USA v England final? That would be good.

France - Germany final would be nice.  Shame Japan went out, always like watching them play

[rjshae]

19 minutes ago, daven said:

Womens world cup has been pretty good. Haven't followed it too much so not sure where all the teams lie in the groupings and that but... USA v England final? That would be good.

England vs. USA would occur in the semi-finals, if they both got past Norway and France, respectively. Not sure USA will get past France, frankly. It'll be an interesting match tomorrow.