Futbol thread.

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Hüftpriester said:
Now that City's unbeaten streak has come to an end, I think it's time to appreciate how good Napoli have been this season. They're still unbeaten domestically and are perfect through 4 games in Europe. I've been watching pretty much all their games since the Liverpool beatdown and imo they are for real. Here are few reasons why I think they're not going anywhere:

1) The midfield. Zielinski, Anguissa and Lobotka have been working really well together and each brings something different. Zielinski is the trequartista, Anguissa the box-to-box and Lobotka as a CDM/deep lying playmaker. Lobotka especially has been really impressive, at times looking like a Marco Verratti type player with his elite balance and low center of gravity.

2) Khvicha Kvaraskhelia. What a player. Absolutely electric with the ball at his feet and has improved his decision making over the past month. Could've easily finished with 3-4 assists in their last game but settled for the game winning assist. If you haven't already done so, watch this player. He's going straight to the top.

3) Attacking depth. Kvara is the star player in this attack but Oshimen was the breakout striker from last season. He was injured for a month and Raspadori played himself into the starting 11 filling in for him. Then you have Lazano/Politano on the right and plenty of capable squad players. The only attacking player they can't afford to lose is Kvara.

And football is beautiful, not at all what you'd expect from an Italian side. They're already through to the knockout round of the CL and I'm looking forward to see if they can make a run.
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I think there was a few people behind the scenes who knew about how good Napoli were going to be. For one, whoever was trying to ship Ronaldo off to a new team that would compete in Champions League knew
 
Greenwood's team in talks with Strangeways FC for a potential long term contract. #HereWeGo!
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I really wish managers were able to criticize dumb decision making by referees in games, some of the refereeing in the EFL recently has become comical but the players or officials can't say much due to threats of fines and suspensions.

Wish they'd actually grow a pair like Warnock.
 
KorokiKokoro said:
I really wish managers were able to criticize dumb decision making by referees in games, some of the refereeing in the EFL recently has become comical but the players or officials can't say much due to threats of fines and suspensions.

Wish they'd actually grow a pair like Warnock.
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Speaking of the EDL, Sheffield United vs Blackpool game was pretty entertaining
 
A rather interesting story in Japanese football, Ventforet Kofu won the Emperor's Cup (Japanese FA Cup basically) a few days ago which doesn't sound that impressive until you realize they are currently sitting near the bottom of the second division of the country's league system. They beat Kashima Antlers 1-0 in the semi-finals (one of the most successful clubs in the country) and beat 3rd in the top division Sanfrecce Hiroshima 5-4 on penalties after a 1-1 draw.

Because they won it it means they get a spot in the AFC Champions League in a similar situation to the Wigan Athletic side that played in the Europa League despite being relegated to the Championship.
 
The 2nd round of DFB Pokal is over and the surprises this time are:

- Werder Bremen (9th in Bundesliga) lost to 2nd division team of Paderborn.

- Borussia Mönchengladbach (6th in Bundesliga) lost to 2nd Division Darmstadt. Darmstadt is 1st in 2. Bundesliga atm and had a strong run last year too.

All other matches went as expected -more or less- and the higher ranked teams won.

VFB Stuttgart wrecked Arminia Bielefeld 6:0, Bayern smashed Augsburg 5-2, Wolfsburg won against 2nd division team of Braunschweig (who had 4 players injured during the game, like really injured), Freiburg won against St. Pauli (scroing the winning goal in the 120th minute), Union Berlin won 2:0, yaddayadda.

- Dortmund won against 2nd division team Hannover 96 but only because of an own goal and a penalty. They weren't really dominating Hannover. 30 seconds into the 2nd half Dortmund nearly scored an own goal too. If this would have happened Hannover would have had a huge chance to win. It's baffeling how much money is around in Dortmund and how much they are struggling every year. Don't expect them to go far in Champions League. If they should lose Bellingham bc of an injury they are fucking fucked.

- Schalke 04 played last weekend against TSG Hoffenheim and lost 3:0. Both team met again now and Schalke got wrecked again with 5:1. They sacked their coach after the match which was long overdue. Schalke is 17th in Bundesliga atm with only 1 win and 10 goals against 24 goals. Hoffenheim could have won easily 6:0, 7:0 or higher. Schalke had one chance and it lead to their goal. Besides this they were basically not on the pitch. Before the start of the season everyone was expecting Schalke to have issues but that it will be this bad is kind of shocking.
But it's get's more shocking - or insane:
VFL Bochum, who are 18th in Bundesliga atm, sacked their coach a few weeks ago. Bochum is really shitty this year but they lost nearly every important player and they don't have the financial background to get other players. So everybody was expecting them to go down this year. Also lot's of injured players right now. Basically their coach didn't have a chance and it was just a matter of time that he will have to go. Although he was sacked a lot of people are speaking very fondly of him. So he could have been a candidate to be new the new Schalke coach. But officials of Schalke stated that they won't hire him bc "he lost to much of respect" as a coach bc oh him being sacked from Bochum.
The audacity to talk about a potential new coach losing respect for being sacked from a team everyone saw going to do bad bc of how shitty their overall situation is ... wow. Just fucking wow.
And the story doesn't end here: Before the new season started Schalke hired Frank Kramer - the now sacked coach. Last season Kramer was the coach of Bielefeld. Bielefeld went down to 2nd division. The style of football that Kramer prefers to play is very defensive. Like having 1 goalkeeper, 10 defenders and pray to God that you will get one chance per game and it will get a goal. Schalke sacked their coach who brought them back to Bundesliga just for a coach who led a team back to 2nd division and playes a very odd style of football.
2018/19 Schalke was playing Champions League. All the years before they were playing at least Europa League. That's 3 years ago. In 3 years Schalke went from playing international to going down to 2nd Bundesliga, coming back and going down again. And most of the higher-ups responsible for this downfall are still working for Schalke. How?
 
Hüftpriester said:
United played really well today, what took ETH so long to start Casamiro over McTominay

I wonder if Ronaldo had an emergency therapy session with Jordan Peterson after this, what a fucking baby. Imagine the cryfest between those two.
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Ronaldo needs all the therapy he can get right now. He doesn't want to be there right now and something happened over the summer but I have boiled it down to one of two options

A. All the places he wanted to go said no to him. He was left with the options of Saudi Arabia and maybe Sporting but he views both of those places as his last stop before retirement and he doesn't want to retire. There was a controversy on the Portuguese version of the awards ceremony where Falcao basically came out and said he has done all he could and now it was his time to step aside and let the young players develop and take up the torch. Then it cut to Ronaldo who later went up and said he wants to go to the World Cup and win. He doesn't have the mindset of retirement and its coming back to bite him

B. He had chances to go to a few clubs like Sporting and Napoli but thought they didn't have a chance to compete and turned down those initial offers which lost them interest. Now he is seeing Napoli top of both Serie A and their champions league group with Sporting very close to advancing (3rd by only goal differential and 1 point off first) and regretting not taking that opportunity.

Either option that was out there is just eating at his mind and with the world cup coming up, he is seeing everything just fall apart
 
At some point he should have just accepted his fate and situation.

Instead of desperately trying to get to a CL club why not wrecking Europa League?

Manchester is not a candidate to win Premier League. Last PL win was when? 2016? 2017? Who could have forseen that Arsenal is going wild this year? But even without Arsenal there is still Man City and Liverpool. Yeah, Liverpool had a rough start but I am pretty sure in the end of the season Liverpool will be among the first 3 and ManU will be not.

Last trophy for ManU was when? 2 or 3 years ago one of the dozens domestic cups - without Ronaldo. No disrespect but in the end of the day it's just a domestic cup and one of several.

He has his legacy built in Manchester but he could have cemented it with leading ManU to win the EL. They are only 2nd in their group right now, behind a team with Real one half of it's the name and the other hald some unspeakable gibberish. ManU should not only have 12 points but also an amount of goals that spells domination. He wants to play CL and build on his goal statistics there but can't wreck the EL? Doesn't look good. He wants the challenge playing against strong teams but his team can't even dominate it's EL group? No good optics. At the moment he is tearing his ManU legacy down.

Teams with names that I can't even spell have more goals scored in their EL groups than ManU. Fucking Freiburg has scored 11 goals. Freiburg has players where literally everyone is like "Who the fuck is this guy even? Where did he come from? Dude's name sounds like a STD. Oh and that dude's name sounds some Lovecraftian monster".

Ronaldo is like playing EL is not some sort of preparing for the World Cup. He always displayed a fair share of arrogance and shit but his current mindset is just embarrasing and insulting. And like there no big names in the EL yet. But with have a CL group with Liverpool, Ajax and Neapel, one with Inter, Barca and Bayern and one with Juve, PSG and Benefica. So some big names will go down to EL.

Imagine ManU facing Barca in the quarterfinals or in the halffinals, maybe even in the final of EL. Imagine winning the EL trophy against such a name. Dude would become new king of Manchester.
 
DSP's Tax Lawyer said:
He doesn't have the mindset of retirement and its coming back to bite him
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Onni Kalsarikännit said:
At some point he should have just accepted his fate and situation.
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At the time I remember thinking it was extremely arrogant of him to think he could return to the premier league at age 36 and have success. I watched him regress in his last season with Juve and Serie A is well behind the prem in terms of pace and physicality. When he wanted out, his best bet would've been returning to La Liga or maybe going to France.

Now the question is what will Santos do with him. I guess it's not much of a question, Santos is his bitch. He will play him even if it means group stage elimination.
 
Hüftpriester said:
When he wanted out, his best bet would've been returning to La Liga or maybe going to France.
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Nobody in La Liga wanted him. Atletico were out, Barca wouldn't dare, and the other clubs who cycle out of the Champions League in that 4th spot couldn't afford him. PSG would be the only team who could afford him in France and they were not going to have a 4th player with ridiculous wages. Ronaldo is in a spot he hasn't been use to in years, being unwanted.
Messi was wanted because he never burned bridges at certain clubs. When Messi left Barca, it was basically Spain that he couldn't move to but he didn't want to move there. He had all of Italy, France, England, and Germany to open the door to him, so long as the payment structure worked out. Even at PSG, Messi could still go back to barca, go to the Premier League, go to Italy, and go to Germany (wage bill not withstanding). Messi also proved that he doesn't need everything to revolve around him over these past 2 years with PSG. He was very happy to drop back and play a lot of through balls to Neymar and Mbappe.

Santos is going to play Ronaldo until the day he gets fired fyi. That man has less than no spine
 
Hüftpriester said:
What an embarrassing end to a brilliant career. United don't even want him as a squad player anymore, lol
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This is the downside to his mentality that made him one of the best players of all time. I think someone mentioned early in his career that Quaresma was more talented than Ronaldo coming out of Sporting and that Leao was also more talented but Ronaldo moved past Quaresma and (probably) will still be better than whatever Leao can do simply because of his desire to be the best, work at his game constantly, and demand the best. He isn't use to not being the best and no matter what he does, his body can't handle it anymore. Its not going to be pretty as he eventually realizes he can no longer do the things he use to do and will eventually need to hang up the boots.
 
DSP's Tax Lawyer said:
This is the downside to his mentality that made him one of the best players of all time. I think someone mentioned early in his career that Quaresma was more talented than Ronaldo coming out of Sporting and that Leao was also more talented but Ronaldo moved past Quaresma and (probably) will still be better than whatever Leao can do simply because of his desire to be the best, work at his game constantly, and demand the best. He isn't use to not being the best and no matter what he does, his body can't handle it anymore. Its not going to be pretty as he eventually realizes he can no longer do the things he use to do and will eventually need to hang up the boots.
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The older and older he gets he’ll just keep moving to shittier and shittier leagues until one day he’s 55 years old dominating the Papua New Guinean league with Hekari United.
 
Homofascism said:
The older and older he gets he’ll just keep moving to shittier and shittier leagues until one day he’s 55 years old dominating the Papua New Guinean league with Hekari United.
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Idk. I think at some point he just realizes its over and hangs up the boots. I imagine he goes back to Sporting either in January or next summer. Then once he no longer plays much there, he hangs up the boots.

Its too bad he won't take the Zlatan route. That would be an amazing career move for him
 
DSP's Tax Lawyer said:
Idk. I think at some point he just realizes its over and hangs up the boots. I imagine he goes back to Sporting either in January or next summer. Then once he no longer plays much there, he hangs up the boots.

Its too bad he won't take the Zlatan route. That would be an amazing career move for him
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I don’t see any coaching or punditry in his future either since he seems like an unlikable twat.
 
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