Futbol thread.

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Steven Gerrard sacked by Aston Villa. Was bound to happen at some point. Villa are too good on paper to be 17th in the prem. Sucks for Gerrard. Hindsight being 20/20, he should have stayed at Rangers a bit longer but a chance to come to the premier league and manage a decent side just seemed too good to turn down. He just didn't have enough experience to do it. Idk where he goes from here but I think a Championship/not top 2 side in Scotland would do him a world of good. Get some experience where every game is a grind and you need to work on squad rotation and tactics more week in and week out should help. He strikes me as a good man manager but doesn't have the ability to get a job where being a good man manager is all you need to win
 
I think Ronaldo would still score plenty of goals in a possession-based side that gave him the ball in the box. But every attempt United make to build the kind of modern team that dominates games falls apart, because nobody at the club has the patience or knowledge to do it, and the fans still want them to play like it's 1994. So they end up going back to pacey black-lad counter-attacking, and praying that Marcus Rashford's talent eventually matches his fame. He's 25 next week, by the way.

It's sad and a bit cruel to keep Ronaldo around to be the Europa League striker. It makes me feel the same way as seeing Mourinho pretending to care about that conference thing. Like I'm very, very old.
 
So final match day for the Argentinian first division and the 2 biggest games are as such

River Plate at Racing

Independiente at Boca Juniors

Now all 4 of these clubs are part of the Big 5 but more importantly, Boca and River are the big rivals and Independiente and Racing are the big rivals. Going into the last day of games, Boca sit top of the table with 51 points and Racing are in second with 50 points. Third place is Huracan with 47 points so they cannot leap frog both teams and claim the title (important for context here). So the situation here is as such-
Boca - Win and you are champions
Racing - Win and Boca tie/loss and you are champions
River plate- Lose your game and hope for boca tie/loss and your biggest rivals don't win the title
Independiente- Lose your game and your biggest rivals don't win the title

I smell shenanigans
 
Idk where he goes from here but I think a Championship/not top 2 side in Scotland would do him a world of good. Get some experience where every game is a grind and you need to work on squad rotation and tactics more week in and week out should help. He strikes me as a good man manager but doesn't have the ability to get a job where being a good man manager is all you need to win
I'd not be shocked if he ends up the manager of expiring Premier League talent, Nice. Because he'd certainly not be welcomed back into Scotland with open-arms, nor do I see a Championship side willingly risk it. Maybe take a gamble and go the MLS route? Oh who am I kidding. He'll get a bunch of money thrown at him to handle West Brom come the winter window.
 
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 the 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.
JJ Cuck from Tifo IRL plagiarized my effort post on Napoli.
Obviously it's probably just a coincidence, the only thing that makes me wonder if they have a lurker here is the way he analyses the midfield. It's almost word for word from my post.
 
Our captain’s armband got inadvertently folded over in a game during gay week and drooling rainbow specials are whipping themselves up into frenzy by calling him homophobic and trying to get the club to drop him.
 
What a disastrous run of la liga teams in current champion league,only Real makes it to the knockout round while their local rival teams either back to the second rate tournament or doesnt even qualify for europa league
Group of average joes like D turned out to be the most interesting one when all 4 teams's position can be changed with a single goal.Spurs might be a team to be reckoned with in round 16 but only if their notable forwards like Son and Richardlison fully recovered and dont get any more injuries during upcoming WC
 
Hopefully I can post something this long without the website freaking out.

Notes- Congrats to Boca Juniors for winning the league. They tied Independiente (who finished 14th) to win thanks to hated rivals River Plate (who jumped from 6th to 3rd) beating Racing Club 2-1.

Flamengo beat Athletico-PR in the Copa Libertadores this past saturday. Its the second time they have won the title in 4 years which is very impressive. Brazilian teams dominated this year with both teams in the finals from Brazil, 3 of the 4 teams in the semi finals from Brazil, and 5 out of the 8 teams in the quarter finals from Brazil


I am gonna hold off on European commentary until the final match days are done Thursday (assuming trannies don't rage at not having a penis in between then) and then a few league commentaries after the World Cup break. Plus we are so close to the World Cup and despite hating everything about how this world cup came about and when its hosted, I gotta say I am still excited about it. The France injuries to both of their starting CMs who are for sure out of the world cup, the European Champions Italy just straight up not being there, England having yet another key player get injured, Germany and Spain in off years, Portugal now having a Ronaldo problem instead of a Ronaldo solution, Holland being a toss up, Erickson playing better to help out Denmark, Bale hurt for LA, Mendy being sidelined for Kepa at Chelsea throwing Senegal out of wack with their gk not getting important games, Belgium's golden child Hazard is nonexistent yet De Bruyne is playing out of his mind and Lukaku is back from injury, Modric is still defying father time for Croatia, Serbia's forwards just dominating their leagues, Brazil have an injury to Richarlison but its not like they don't have a million forwards to take his spot, Argentina have everyone playing out of their mind and ready to win for Messi, Uruguay have a few players playing out of their mind (Including Suarez who helped Nacional win their 49th title), and there are so many more who I don't even fully know about. God I hate how excited this tournament gets me because everything surrounding it pisses me the fuck off



Also, Saturday at 4pm eastern time (late night for you euro fags) the MLS cup final will happen between Philly and LAFC. The only thing of note here is that LAFC is the first team in like 5 or 6 years to represent the west that aren't from Seattle or Portland. Pretty amazing run by both Seattle and Portland considering that the league is designed to have different teams at the top every year.
 
I don't know whether to bother with the World Cup or not. On the one hand, the level of political bullshit and hypocrisy is going to be overwhelming. On the other, it will be impossible to avoid, there's nothing else going on at this time of year, and there should at least be some funny happenings.

I'm really not looking forward to England conversations with random people, where I'll either have to pretend to support them, or have a half-hour conversation about racial politics.
 
I don't know whether to bother with the World Cup or not. On the one hand, the level of political bullshit and hypocrisy is going to be overwhelming. On the other, it will be impossible to avoid, there's nothing else going on at this time of year, and there should at least be some funny happenings.

I'm really not looking forward to England conversations with random people, where I'll either have to pretend to support them, or have a half-hour conversation about racial politics.
Its no different than other politics with watching. Thankfully, I have a group of buddies who love to watch the game and don't care for the politics as well so I can watch the game with them. Makes viewing more fun
 
Its no different than other politics with watching. Thankfully, I have a group of buddies who love to watch the game and don't care for the politics as well so I can watch the game with them. Makes viewing more fun
Exactly. I'll be watching with my cousin and his friends. None of us give a rats ass about political stuff.
 
Pachuca won the Liga MX while we were away, destroying Toluca 8-2 on aggregate in a two legged final. I enjoyed all the America supporter tears in the semifinal vs Toluca. They thought they won the series with a stoppage time goal in the return leg in Estadio Azteca only for it to have been offside by the slimmest of margins. Fuck America and fuck Televisa.

MLS Cup is Sunday with Philadelphia vs LAFC.
 
Since the internet was gay, I wasn't able to do my european break downs. Guess now is as good of a time as any

Group A
Napoli 1st, Liverpool 2nd, Ajax 3rd
Napoli really didn't have to try too hard with this one. Liverpool needed to win 4-0 to take first in the group, which probably wasn't going to happen. Ajax GD saw them pretty safe for europa league vs Rangers but still pulled out a win.
Takeaways- Liverpool as a 2nd place seed is kinda dangerous for a lot of teams. Chelsea, Tottenham, and City are all safe but benfica, bayern, and porto (spoilers) should probably be scared of what Liverpool could potentially do to them. Only team I would say can safely beat them is Real Madrid. Ajax in the Europa league should be a little scary as well. Rangers had the worst champions league result but that is a little overshadowed by details. Scotland as a league needed 2 teams in the champions league and rangers kinda squeaked in there. They also had a really tough group to face, with both Napoli and Liverpool fully capable of running up the score on them. Honestly, if I was a Rangers fan, I would look at the fact we got into champions league as a success and just try to build on that

Group B
Porto 1st, Brugge 2nd, Leverkusen 3rd
Porto eventually took the first place off Brugge, who looked happy to just get to the next round. Brugge certainly shocked a lot of people by winning their first 3 games. Xabi Alonso has his work cut out come the second half of the season with the Europa league but now he should have some time to work with what he has considering the break coming up. Not sure how many players of his will be going to the world cup but he should be able to work with most of his squad. Atletico just completely fell apart and I think its a problem with Simeone and creative forwards that is just killing them right now

Group C
Bayern 1st, Inter 2nd, Barca 3rd
Bayern are just unreal to face in the group stages. So clinical and so machine like, you might as well pencil in 2 losses when you face them and hope for a draw. Inter basically won the group when they beat and tied inter in match day 3 and 4. Barcelona, humiliated by only getting 7 points in a group with bayern and getting knocked down to the Europa league, pulled multiple economic levers that could potentially kill the club in the future to overhaul their club and *checks notes* get 7 points in a group with bayern. The decisions to destroy the clubs future and see no real progress has made Pique see the light and Retire. Plzen should be happy to have traveled to 3 iconic stadiums in europe to get destroyed

Group D
Tottenham 1st, Frankfurt 2nd, Sporting 3rd.
This group was a mess and I would hate to be a fan of one of the teams in here because nothing was clear cut and every week was most likely disappointment on some level. Kind of happy Frankfurt has advanced as Paxten Aaronson from the Philadelphia Union will be joining them after the world cup so with bundesliga, champions league, and the pokal, he should get some playing time. The fun little note from here is in the Marseille vs Tottenham game at the very end, the score was tied 1-1. Apparently Marseille's coach realized that with the 1-1 draw and Frankfurt beating Sporting, they were in the Europa league and was trying to get players back on the corner kick but he could not be heard. Tottenham ended up counter attacking and scoring the go ahead goal that knocked out Marseille from Europe all together. No idea how true that is but its pretty funny either way

Group E
Chelsea 1st, Milan 2nd, RB Salzburg 3rd
Potter seems to have turned around Chelsea, at least in the Champions League, with his time. Zagreb's 4 points come from a tie vs Salzburg and beating a Tuchel Chelsea side. To go from that and an early tie vs Salzburg at home to winning the group convincingly home and away to a new and improved AC Milan side is impressive. Also nice to see Milan back in the knock out rounds of Champions League. Certainly had to earn it but they look really solid. I like a lot of youth built into a team with 2 legends at the CF position who refuse to retire

Group F
Real madrid 1st, RB Leipzig 2nd, Shakhtar 3rd
Sucks for Celtic to have a blow out for the final game but Madrid needed the win to keep first. Like Rangers, I think Celtic's final placement doesn't really tell the story for how well they played in this group. Real Madrid looked a little weaker this time around but I am not sure exactly why that is. But they are a first place team and def want to avoid them in the knock outs for as long as you can. Leipzig managed to crawl their way back in after losing their first 2 matches by winning 4 in a row. I just hated how the final match of the group against Shakhtar was built as a good vs evil because of the Ukraine situation and everyone in Germany hating Leipzig.

Group G
Man City 1st, Dortmund 2nd, Sevilla 3rd.
I don't think you need to read much into City's last 3 games, where they put in their back up squads like it was a Europa league tie. The real team will show up in the knock out rounds with a Viking up top being fed balls by a pissed off Belgian who is pissed his side under performed in the world cup yet again. Dortmund can also potentially gain some momentum if the youngsters get an easy round of 16 opponent and let them get some experience under them. They also need a few guys to come back from injuries and hope Gio Reyna doesn't get hurt in the world cup as he helps carry the USMNT to a respectable quarter finals appearance (God willing, please don't be a jinx)

Group H
Benfica 1st, PSG 2nd, Juve 3rd
Idk how much I want to laugh at PSG knowing that they lost the tie breaker on away goals scored here. I don't think it should matter much as any of the group winners, outside of maybe bayern and city, would be shitting their pants having to figure out how to defend Messi (who might be looking at this as his last chance to win the champions league), Neymar, and Mbappe with at least one of them pissed by not winning the world cup. Plus with Messi playing out of his mind right now after settling down in France, it would be foolish to bet against them. Also, don't sleep on benfica. Team is actually pretty solid and there are rumors that Joao Felix might move back to regain form which just makes them scarier. Juve are just a shell of their former selves and @Hüftpriester can give you the specific rants about them
 
About Leverkusen:
Xavi had his first game as Leverkusen coach against Schalke which Leverkusen won 4:0. Schalke was ranked 18th at this time (and still is).

Since then Leverkusen played ...

in BL:
- lost against Frankfurt 1:5
- draw against Wolfsburg 2:2
- lost against RB Leipzig 0:2

in CL:
- lost against Porto 0:3
- draw against Atletico 2:2
- draw against Brügge 0:0

So Xavi won 1 game, lost 3 and had 3 draws in 7 games. The only win was against the worst team in Bundesliga.

Leverkusen (16th) has the 3rd worst offence with only 16 goals scored in 12 games. Only Bochum (17th) and Schalke (18th) are worse with each 11 goals. Leverkusen is on par with Augsburg, Hertha and Stuttgart.
Leverkusen also has the 3rd worst defence with 25 goals against them. Again, only Bochum and Schalke are worse.

Tomorrow Leverkusen is going to play against Union Berlin. Union has the best defence atm with only 9 goals against them in 13 games.

I am pretty sure Xavi will end this season as Leverkusen coach. Leverkusen isn't a club that does shit like having 1 zillion coaches during a season. As a club Leverkusen is to solid unlike the teams who did this in the past (Schalke, Hertha). But after this season Xavi will very likely go. The improvement Leverkusen would have to show for Xavi to stay is unreal.
I guess they won't go down to 2nd Bundesliga but chances are good that they will have to play the relegation matches. It's either Leverkusen or Stuttgart who is going to the relegation matches. Augsburg and Hertha would be candidates too but both teams are too stable this year. Hertha is still weak but they are not that dogshit bad team like last season.

It's also unreal how bad Leverkusen is this season. Their squad didn't really change. They had 4 or 5 players leaving the club but none that was important in any way.
They got 4-5 new players but only 2 are noteworthy. One is Adam Hlozek from Sparta Brag who wasn't that bad last season. A lot of people expected him to have his break-out season this year but so far he barely even played. The other one is Hudson-Odoi from Chelsea and I can't remember having seen him play so far.

Last season Patrick Schick battled with Lewandowski and Haarland for the best striker trophy until he got injured. This season he barely scores anything. It's like someone switched him with a doppelgaenger who just learned to walk.
So given how bad Leverkusen they should have placed 4th in their CL group which can only mean two things:
1. It was just luck and coincidence that they didn't placed 4th.
2. Atletico Madrid is in an even worse state than Leverkusen but this can't be bc they 3rd in La Liga at the moment.

As Atletico fan I would be really, really pissed about my team and their CL run this year.
 
Leeds United with 2 wins in a row and now sitting in 12th on 15 points and 4 off the drop zone

Always remember
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Napoli had a tie with second place (at the time) Atalanta. This game was at Atalanta and they won 2-1. They now have a 6 point lead over now second place AC Milan. Its insane how good they are and I think this might be the year they win the title. It all depends on how well they do coming back from the break.

In other news, MLS cup final saw an insane 3-3 tie that went to penalties. LAFC (the reincarnation of Chivas USA) won the title. 1-1 at half and all the way until the 83rd minute where it went to OT 2-2. I imagine the Philadelphia Union thought they won it in the 4th minute of stoppage time in second OT until Gareth fucking Bale scored in the 8th minute of stoppage time to send it to penalties.


Gerard Pique went out on top. They won at home against 15th place Almeria and Pique got to play up until the 85th minute and got the standing ovation he deserved.

Cheering for Union Berlin tomorrow. Gotta beat Xabi Alonso's side, a struggling Augsburg, and a surprisingly good Freiburg to guarantee their spot at the top of the table going into the break
 
The first half of Leverkusen vs Union Berlin was probably one of the most boring halfs I ever saw. But straight in the first minute of the 2nd half Leverkusen scored the 1:0 and we are now in minute 60 and it's 3:0 for Leverkusen and I don't know what's going on anymore hahahaha

Edit: It ended 5:0 lol
 
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