European Football Thread

[Malenko]

Just look at Oliseh, Babayaro and many other's careers. At 18 you're starting for an european premier league club, at 21 you're at a top club in europe, at 23 you're at your peak, at 26 comes the decline. At 30 you're irrelevant.

[gunnar hendershow]

It's basically toil away in anonymity or have an opportunistic sports agent fabricate an identity. Can't ever fault the players for going along with it. Happens here with baseball a fair amount too, players hit their peak a couple years early than their peers and decline a couple years early as well.

[Lineker]

Andre Onana’s year-long doping ban has been reduced to nine months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). He will now be eligible for competition from November. (The Athletic)

[gunnar hendershow]

I overall think the away goals rule can favor the away team in the second leg in terms of tactics. But the inverse of it is the away team in the first leg will have the chance to play very negative football for 90 minutes and try to then win it in their home leg. Single-leg ties are much better ideas if there's no real discrepancy in goals scored home vs away. But that's less games to air on TV so they were never going to do that.

[Benjamin]

Really, really don't like this rule. Teams, especially underdogs, will simply do as Damshow says and shore up at the back to get it back to their home game still even. Not a fan. 

[Adam]

I've not liked away goals for years. It doesn't make a lot of sense in modern football, where there is no massive disadvantage in real terms to being the away side. Plus, any away side of the second leg has an unfair advantage in any extra time games, as they have more time to score than the other side has towards the rule.

This is a good move in my opinion.

[Benjamin]

Oh, yeah, I wish they could have kept the away goal rule but changed it so that it doesn't apply if a goal is scored in extra time, as that makes no sense due to the fact there was no extra time in the first leg when the other team was the away team. 

[Szumi]

3 hours ago, Adam said:

I've not liked away goals for years. It doesn't make a lot of sense in modern football, where there is no massive disadvantage in real terms to being the away side. Plus, any away side of the second leg has an unfair advantage in any extra time games, as they have more time to score than the other side has towards the rule.

This is a good move in my opinion.

Say that to Barcelona in 2018 and 2019. Or PSG in 2017.

During the COVID era being home/away was not as significant, but there is 100% a disadvantage to being an away side in major fixtures. It's why most sides have better records at home versus away. That crowd factor is huge for many sides.

[Adam]

6 hours ago, Szumi - A Polack said:

Say that to Barcelona in 2018 and 2019. Or PSG in 2017.

During the COVID era being home/away was not as significant, but there is 100% a disadvantage to being an away side in major fixtures. It's why most sides have better records at home versus away. That crowd factor is huge for many sides.

Aye but that's the same for both teams in a two-leg tie, hence the home and away set-up. It isn't an inherently unfair disadvantage to play away from home when you get the chance to be the home team for an equal amount of time too.

[Colly]

I think it's a time will tell situation really, the rule was brought on to stop horribly defensive football, with it removed we'll have to see if starts to creep back.

[Lineker]

Quote

Uefa has signed a groundbreaking rights deal for the Women’s Champions League that will mean the competition is streamed live for free around the world for the next four years.

The global sports platform Dazn has been awarded the newly centralised rights for the group stage onwards and has entered into a partnership with YouTube to ensure the competition will be freely available to watch around the world, excluding the Middle East, North Africa and China, where they have rights to clips and highlights, for the first time.

For the first two seasons all 61 games will be available to watch on Dazn and for free on a new dedicated Dazn Women’s Champions League YouTube channel. For the 2023-25 seasons all 61 games will be shown by Dazn and 19 will be available for free on YouTube.

Lyon’s Ada Hegerberg, the all-time Women’s Champions League top-scorer, applauded the deal. “We are finally being given something we’ve asked for for a long time,” the Norwegian forward said. “It’s about time women’s football got this kind of exposure!

“For years, people have struggled to have access to our games, wherever they were living. Now, they have the unique opportunity to watch all over the world if they’d like to. The game is opening up to millions, potentially billions, which is unprecedented.”

Uefa’s head of women’s football, Nadine Kessler, said: “Such visibility changes everything, as the best female players and best women’s teams in the world can inspire more young girls and boys to fall in love with this sport. Together we are all bringing women’s football to the world and everyone who will tune in will truly make a difference to something bigger.”

The agreement is one of the largest broadcast deals in women’s club football history and to announce the deal Dazn released a short video directed by the multi-award winner Alyssa Boni and with the voiceover by the British rapper Flohio called We All Rise With More Eyes, which aims to highlight the huge impact the increased visibility will bring to women’s football.

“Dazn is thrilled to be the new global broadcaster for Uefa Women’s Champions League,” said Dazn Group’s co-chief executive James Ruston. “Dazn was founded with a vision of making premium sports more accessible, and what’s more accessible than centralised rights for the first time and all matches free on YouTube?

“Overnight, this will make the best women’s football easier to watch around the world. Along the way, we look forward to elevating live broadcast production, extending existing Dazn content franchises and unveiling new shows that showcase the breadth and brilliance of women’s football.”

 

[Malenko]

Don't know if this has been discussed anywhere but some audios from Florentino Perez have been leaked.

This guy is an absolute cunt. Casillas saved Madrid's defense who basically had 0 investment during the Galacticos era and wasn't far from saying he was the worst goalkeeper ever and the reason why Real Madrid didn't win every single competition ever. He also said he's the dumbest person ever and he doesn't understand how every fan loves him. Also complained about the fact Casillas would show up sad to the training ground if he had an argument with his wife. He used this as proof Casillas is like a dumb child!

Raul received similar treatment. The same Raul who was the ECL top scorer ever before Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo decided to break every goal scoring record ever. Florentino said he's terribly bad. Raul and Casillas are in his opinion the worst Real Madrid players ever.

 

He also said players are selfish and can't be trusted and basically said football players are all horrible people and he would know because he has seen lots of horrible people and they're the worst of the bunch. 

He also said at some point Cristiano Ronaldo is an opportunist. All of the current team (at the time). And terrible players too.

It goes on and on.

[Lineker]

I cannot believe that Perez is a cunt.

[Benjamin]

18 hours ago, Lineker said:

I cannot believe that Perez is a cunt.

SHOCKED that some rich old billionaire turns out to be a gigantic piece of shit.

[The Lusophone]

Some highlights include calling Raul and Casillas "frauds", Cristiano Ronaldo is "sick" and "crazy", both Jose and Fabio Coentrao are "idiots" - he said something about Pepe too, he seems to have lots of issues with Portuguese people, Jorge Mendes also gets criticised.

He laughs at the idea of Vicente Del Bosque being national team manager (this is either 2006 or 2008) and calls him a fool who doesn't know anything about tactics.

He also says a female journalist is only in football for fame and to fuck players.

[Lineker]

The fallout of this is going to be fascinating.

[Malenko]

45 minutes ago, MadJack said:

Some highlights include calling Raul and Casillas "frauds", Cristiano Ronaldo is "sick" and "crazy", both Jose and Fabio Coentrao are "idiots" - he said something about Pepe too, he seems to have lots of issues with Portuguese people, Jorge Mendes also gets criticised.

He laughs at the idea of Vicente Del Bosque being national team manager (this is either 2006 or 2008) and calls him a fool who doesn't know anything about tactics.

He also says a female journalist is only in football for fame and to fuck players.

The words used were generally worse but I feel they may get lost in translation.

Casillas insults are just awful. Ugly stick figure, dumb idiot,  second most overrated player in Madrid's history after Raul. He called him a "perrito faldero" (these are small dogs people can carry around, like say, a pomeranian), which when applied to people usually refers to someone who's bossed around by other people, which in this case means his wife. He used a plethora of insults regarding this, because in his opinion only a small dumb kid would be affected by his relationship with a woman.

Cristiano Ronaldo is indeed sick (in this context it means insane), and an imbecile. Mourinho too, besides calling him an aberrant weirdo.

He basically called Vicente del Bosque retarded. Coentrao is a brainless fool. 

The last part, while true, he said it referring to Sara Carbonero (Casillas wife) who happens to be a sports Journalist, he meant it referring to football players wives in general. Not journalists. The part I heard at least. Not saying it's any better. Just to clarify

 

I didn't hear Pepe and Jorge Mendes parts. Maybe there are more!

[gunnar hendershow]

My only hesitancy in going "he's finished now" is because these all happened years ago and nearly every player or coach commented about is no longer associated with the club. It's still a terrible look but this guy seems to be made of Teflon and everything winds up sliding off him in the end.

Maybe this time it will be different, we'll see.

[Benjamin]

I don't see anything happening to him, to be honest. I would be surprised if something did. 

[Lineker]