Futbol thread.

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You can dismiss it as Scottish football and boring but the Old Firm Derby is this weekend between Rangers and Celtic. Both teams got humiliated in Champions League qualification over the past 2 weeks so the managers are under some pretty big pressure. What's even funnier is that Rangers have tied their past 3 league games against Motherwell, Dundee, and St. Mirren along with losing 9-1 on aggregate to Club Brugge. So the former Southampton manager Russell Martin might get sacked on the pitch this weekend if Celtic beat them at Ibrox
 
How ten Hag is doing? Well ...

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Yes, Leverkusen gave away a 3:1 lead against Bremen. Which saw a red card. And played mostly of inexperienced youngsters bc the old guard has either left or is injured.
 
DSP's Tax Lawyer said:
Ehh, Leverkusen have sold so much of their squad. Next year will be his make or break year once he has a full squad at his helm
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Spoiler: he is not going to survive this season in Leverkusen.

Wouldn't be surprised if he is gone within the next few weeks. Mood in Leverkusen among club officials, players and fans is really bad right now.
 
Onni Kalsarikännit said:
Spoiler: he is not going to survive this season in Leverkusen.

Wouldn't be surprised if he is gone within the next few weeks. Mood in Leverkusen among club officials, players and fans is really bad right now.
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How can you sell most of your starting line up and then expect to be doing well? I know he bought players but almost all of them are young and the only ones who aren't are either goalkeepers or Lucas Vasquez
 
DSP's Tax Lawyer said:
How can you sell most of your starting line up and then expect to be doing well? I know he bought players but almost all of them are young and the only ones who aren't are either goalkeepers or Lucas Vasquez
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I don't really disagree here. Looking from the outside Leverkusen basically lost every major player from the squad they went unbeaten and won the Bundesliga two years ago. It's no exaggeration to say they had a complete overhaul of the squad. They had already lost a lot of the edge and grip that made them unbeatable last season. A lot of the players were very obviously tired (especially Xhaka; it was almost sad seeing him play). So obviously with a new coach and a new squad it takes time until things start to work out on the pitch.
But their pre-season friendlies were a mess. They started with 5:1 loss against the u20 team of Flamengo. They had a 2:0 win against Bochum who were just freshly relegated to 2. Bundesliga. Then another close win against Fortuna Sittard (2:1) who are a mid-table team at best in the Eredivisie. Then a 3:0 against freshly promoted Serie A team Pisa. They finished their pre-season with a 2:0 loss against Chelsea. During that time a lot of players left and new players just had joined.
Then the regular season started with the first round of DFB cup where they beat a 4th tier team 4:0 but only scored 3 goals after the opponents saw a red card late in the game. So not really a good look. Then they lost their first league match to Hoffenheim who barely scratched relegation last season. And now they gave away a 3:1 lead against Bremen who had one player less thanks to a red card. With the break from the league they have now two weeks to fix their shit but their next match is against Frankfurt who have both clearly won their DFB cup match and their first two league matches. Frankfurt is seem as the clear 2nd best team right now by a lot of people (not me tho despite being a Frankfurt supporter; we always start strong and have a good first half of the season but then we fall off. I don't trust the hype). So should Leverkusen lose they started their season with 2 losses and a draw. They then face a few teams that they should be able to beat (Kopenhagen in CL, St. Pauli, Gladbach and Union Berlin and Mainz in the league with Eindhoven in between) before they face P$G and FC Bayern. But the way the team presented itself against Bremen -again, who have a lot of injured key players and had to play a lot of inexperienced youngsters- I can get the feel of things not working out soon.

But I think there are others layers at play in the moment. Which requires some more in-dept sperging.

First, let's look at Bundesliga.

Everbody clearly sees FC Bayern as the favourite team, despite their squad being very thin (24 players, four of them being goalkeepers) and, at least in my opinion, a weak defence. Tah is doing Upamecano things. Both are strong defenders but prone to black-out moments that can cost a match. Then there is Kim who is prone to injuries. Davies is still out with an injury. Same for Ito who was out for the first half of the last season bc of a broken foot, came back for a match or two and then broke his foot again. Then there is Pavlovic who missed most of last season bc of injury/illness. Musiala is still out for the rest of the year.
They still have Gnabry in their team who always starts strong at the beginning of the season, then falls off and disappears for the rest, before coming back strong when everythin is said and done in all the competitions. Right now Tom Bischoff, a promising youngster who joined them this season, is also out with an injury.
Bayern missed out on Wirtz and now on Woltemade. They also won't get Jackson from Chelsea although the deal was basically done.

So with all these issues and besides everybody betting on FC Bayern there is also this feel of this being the year again where Bayern could be beaten.

- Nobody is convinced Dortmund has a shoot at the championship. They might have been back on track under Kovac as coach but Kovac is only strong in making struggling teams better but he's not good in bringing a team on the next level. Kovac teams always stagnate at some level.
- Leipzig has fallen off and is also doing an overhaul of their squad but they weren't able to challenge Bayern for quite some time now.
- Frankfurt is seeing as the strongest rival right now but again, I'm skeptical.
- Stuttgart was seen at beast as fighting for the Eurocup but not as a contender to Bayern and now they lost Woltemade. All their strategy was based on getting the ball to him and hoping he scores. Stuttgart has suffered them same fate as Leverkusen in the last two season. Basically they lost every crucial player and now Undav, their other striker is injured too.

So with this outlook -Bayern having some major squad issues and other maybe-contentors also struggling while Leverkusen having the financial resources to build a competitive squad which could rival Bayern- I think some of the inpatience is rooted in this situation.

Adding that a lot of teams are seeing to be clearly only in some sort of mid-table positions (Freiburg, Hoffenheim, Wolfsburg, or even fighting against relegation (Gladbach, Union Berlin, Heidenheim, St. Pauli, Hamburg, Cologne, Bremen) or in between (Mainz, Augsburg) we face kind of a weak league at the moment.

Which brings me to another layer that is raging at the moment through our German football world.

We, as a league so to speak, lost Wirtz, Xhaka, Frimpong from Leverkusen to the Premier League. We also lost Ekitike (Frankfurt to Liverpool) and Marmoush last season, Jamie Gittens (Dortmund to Chelsea) and now Woltemade (Stuttgart to Newcastle). Palinha didn't really work out at Bayern (didnt really get a chance too bc he didn't fit into Company's plans) and went back to Tottenham (he for sure is going to join them at the end of the season). Same for Mathys Tel. Gravenberch didnt get a chance at Bayern and left for the Premier League. Sane left Bayern and went to Galatasaray, Coman left Bayern and went to Saudi Arabia. Sesko left Leipzig and went to ManU and now Xabi Simmons left Leipzig to and also went to the Premier League.
There are probably more names to list here but the point is, we have lost a lot of young promissing players and also established names, most of them to the Premier League.
Bayern right now can't attract young future star players and even struggles to bring bigger names from outside the Bundesliga (except Luis Diaz but they are close to finance the Wirtz deal for Liverpool so there is that).

The numbers being thrown around are that the Premier League invested in this transfer window 2.85 billion Euros for bringing in new players (while allegedly they only brought in 1.61 billions for players being sold which makes a defficit of more than 1.2 billions). That the Premier League is a financial powerhouse, no, the financial powerhouse has never been more visible than right now and obviously the Bundesliga can't compare with this. No other league can compete with that tho besides three other clubs (P$G, Barcelona and Madrid) while we have Bayern who can't really compete with all of this. So the overall feel right now is that Bundesliga has fallen off; massively and nobody has an idea how we can catch up again. Premier League clubs are going to dominate the Euro cups, that's obvious. Just look at the competition last year. Tottenham and Man U while massively struggling in their national league went to the Euroleague final. Chelsea dominated the Conference League. Which means "we" might lose on the big money in these competitions. Where Italy fits in in all of this, I have no idea. But they have at least an exciting top league. They have at least a two team race for the championship (Napoli, Inter) while still having other clubs ready to catch up again (AC Milan, Juventus, Atalanta, probably AS Rom at some point).

There is alot of dire feelings around the situation of the Bundesliga as a European top league right now and the league itself and it's competitiveness, towards other leagues and within itself.
 
Bit of an odd situation going on with Chelsea and Bayern Munich the last couple of days.

So Chelsea were happy for striker Nicolas Jackson to leave and join Bayern on loan with a €15m loan fee. On Saturday he flew to Munich and there's pictures of him on the plane ready for his move.

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While Jackson was travelling to Germany, Chelsea was playing against Fulham and 14 minutes in their new striker Liam Delap suffers a hamstring injury and is now out until mid-October. Chelsea, panicking, then tell Jackson he's NOT moving to Bayern, cancel the loan move and told him to come back.

Jackson, however, refused to return to London and is pushing for the move to Bayern to happen. Chelsea panic and realise they aren't getting Jackson back, so they've now gone ahead and pushed striker Marc Guiu, who signed a year long loan deal with Sunderland only weeks earlier, to be recalled and return to the club.

As of a few hours ago, Jackson is still in Germany pushing for the move to happen but nothing is confirmed yet.

Also, other notable news from the EPL:
  • Alexander Isak is moving to Liverpool after Newcastle United agree a €125m deal for him, a new British record transfer fee.
  • Newcastle United have agreed to sign Yoanne Wissa from Crystal Palace for £55m.
  • Tottenham have agreed to sign Kolo Muani from PSG on loan.
  • Manchester United have agreed to sign goalkeeper Senne Lammens from Royal Antwerp for around £18m.
  • Aston Villa have agreed to sign Jadon Sancho on loan from Manchester United.
  • Manchester United's Antony is joining Real Betis for a fee of €25m plus 50% sell-on clause.
  • Donnarumma reportedly signing for Manchester City for €30m from PSG.
 
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The Jackson loan went through for Bayern in the end.

But the Leverkusen/ten Hag drama is even wilder. The sporting director gave an interview claiming that the sacking had nothing to do with the current result in Bremen and that they were actually already talking about sacking him before the match. Which would mean they would have sacked him after just *one* league match.

After the Bremen match Andrich, captain of the team, said in a post-match interview:
"We have too many people who are preoccupied with other things or just with themselves. I don't know if I've ever experienced that at Bayer," grumbled captain Robert Andrich after the final whistle. When Andrich was given the opportunity in Bremen to at least wipe the coaching issue off the table, he let it pass. When asked whether the players were just implementing ten Hag's instructions incorrectly or whether they didn't know what to do, the German international said: “It's a mixture of both.”

He did not want to use the transfers at the runners-up as an excuse for the blunder in Bremen. “This has nothing to do with any unrest or player transfers or processes,” said Andrich. Rather, the existing personnel had to improve - in terms of playing quality, but also in terms of team unity."

They brought in ETH in May. Something must have happened behind closed doors which soured the mood even before the start of the league.

ETH took some shots on Leverkusen:
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Onni Kalsarikännit said:
But the Leverkusen/ten Hag drama is even wilder. The sporting director gave an interview claiming that the sacking had nothing to do with the current result in Bremen and that they were actually already talking about sacking him before the match. Which would mean they would have sacked him after just *one* league match.

After the Bremen match Andrich, captain of the team, said in a post-match interview:
"We have too many people who are preoccupied with other things or just with themselves. I don't know if I've ever experienced that at Bayer," grumbled captain Robert Andrich after the final whistle. When Andrich was given the opportunity in Bremen to at least wipe the coaching issue off the table, he let it pass. When asked whether the players were just implementing ten Hag's instructions incorrectly or whether they didn't know what to do, the German international said: “It's a mixture of both.”

He did not want to use the transfers at the runners-up as an excuse for the blunder in Bremen. “This has nothing to do with any unrest or player transfers or processes,” said Andrich. Rather, the existing personnel had to improve - in terms of playing quality, but also in terms of team unity."

They brought in ETH in May. Something must have happened behind closed doors which soured the mood even before the start of the league.

ETH took some shots on Leverkusen:
1756767635246.webp
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There need to be people in the backroom who need to go. Why hire him if you are going to fire him at the start of the season? Now you have to find a new manager to take over a completely overhauled (and weaker) squad with no off season.
 
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