European Football Thread

[ADG]

Now the Blackburn Rovers of Germany!

[DavidMarrio]

 

Added time, penalty to tie it....does that

[Lineker]

 

[lanky316]

That, in turn leave Vitesse on -1 points for the season.

[JasonM]

The story of Vitesse is one of continued incompetence and hubris in the face of reality.

After the Russian sanctions hit the club's owner, they had multiple options to trim down and accept that they aren't able to toss money up the wall, and rather than doing that they continued spending big whilst the team itself was getting worse every transfer window.

They let themselves believe some American consortium on a white horse would save them, get a suspicious loan of 15M from them, but unsurprisingly the takeover was nixxed by the FA because the consortium couldn't in any way prove they had actual money streams.

Then they also got a predatory loan from sports loanshark Tifosy, which has put them on the hook for a second multi million loan at like 15% interest.

They chucked money at Davy Propper (Former BHA, Former Vitesse Academy) to come out of his early retirement, and then proceeded to chuck even more money at PSV to sign Davy's classmate, Marco van Ginkel. But both of them are arguably washed, and they had zero actual attacking talent to make use of those two midfielders.

So again, massive losses, at some point they also fired Philip Cocu as their head coach and had to pay him a big severance.

So after all this, they still have a Russian owner who isn't there because of the sanctions, and even more debts than they had post COVID.

This is a club that twice over in this century had been saved from the brink, once by the city, and once by their fans with loans that were wiped away.

And still they're in the shitter, because Vitesse is a compulsive gambler.

So after 24 years of acting and spending like a top 5 club, what do they have to show for it? 8 European seasons, 1 Conference league best of 16, 1 Dutch cup win and one cup final.

Not even a decade of being Chelsea's backyard did anything for them.

This moment is a long time coming, and I am biased because I live in the city of one of their arch rivals, but "Hollywood on the Rhine" is finally over.

And if they're not careful, they won't even make it to relegation.

[Lineker]

 

[Colly]

I'm not a fan of the phrase "farewell tour" like he's David Tennant leaving Dr Who. There probably isn't a better option but feels very weird.