Futbol 2020-21

[Antoine]

He should start on the bench, Icardi & Draxler on the field.

[Antoine]

Ah! Last min surprise: it's Ander Herrera, not Draxler

[surfer]

Marquinhos has some vertical leap. That's a bad miss from Di Maria. Doesnt look like things are going PSG's way so far, although with these conditions weird things could happen.

[Wombatz]

urgh, two such hateful teams

[Antoine]

ahah yeah, and that repetitive lack of discipline on Paris' side is so immature
Happy for Mahrez though!

[roger.haddad.]

So apparently the ref was telling PSG players to "fuck off"? Strange days. Will be interested as more info surfaces.

[Wombatz]

it will be interesting what happens at psg now. i suspect tüchel was pretty good at kicking pampered star players' asses (often it was rumored he had lost the dressing room with mbappe throwing a special tantrum, but next match day would be another inch closer to a proper team effort (judging from a small sample)) ... poch is probably not as good at that, with him they would have to start buying sensibly and building a team ... i can't see that happen, so next season they might really be in trouble. they should get zidane as quickly as possible (who in a more natural way will be even better at kicking pampered star players' asses).

i guess city are no dirtier than real, but their brand of posh entitled dirty makes my bile rise (as it's supposed to do).

[Wombatz]

wasting so many chances ... football superstition knows how this ends

[surfer]

yeah but Madrid are all over the place.

show no intent, defending for their lives. More likely to get a man sent off tbh

this Chelsea team looks hungry, they'll be challengers in the league next year. Could they win the double this year?

[surfer]

it will be interesting what happens at psg now. i suspect tüchel was pretty good at kicking pampered star players' asses (often it was rumored he had lost the dressing room with mbappe throwing a special tantrum, but next match day would be another inch closer to a proper team effort (judging from a small sample)) ... poch is probably not as good at that, with him they would have to start buying sensibly and building a team ... i can't see that happen, so next season they might really be in trouble. they should get zidane as quickly as possible (who in a more natural way will be even better at kicking pampered star players' asses).

i guess city are no dirtier than real, but their brand of posh entitled dirty makes my bile rise (as it's supposed to do).

Tuchel is the stern schoolmaster, Poch is the arm-around-you-shoulder father figure. Completely different styles but both could succeed at motivating PSG, although I dont know the individual personality types of their players too well. Zidane is also a father figure but one who motivates not through sympathies, but through trying to win the attention of a distant cold god. PSG is not a team that answers adversity well, maybe Poch can change that, but they might need to bring in a steadying influence, like a Jordan Henderson or James Milner type figure.

[Antoine]

When you see Tuchel and Thiago Silva reaching the final...

[Wombatz]

i'd root for tüchel anyway, of course, but actually the team is quite likeable, if one forgets for a moment they're chelsea ... still, i'd prefer if they took the cl and leave the fa cup to leicester

[Antoine]

I'd root for N'Golo Kanté, but I'm quite pessimistic...

[surfer]

Its nice to see Pulisic getting minutes and doing well. Probably already the best American player ever despite not having won anything. Everyone loves Kante. Mount seems likeable. I pity Werner mostly (Tommy Abraham too). I dont know anything about Kai Havertz. Silva Rudiger and Azpilequeta are annoying, Marcos Alonso I outright hate.

Ziyech and Mahrez, if you took off their jerseys and blurred their faces, I dont think I'd be able to tell them apart. Same with Ivan Perisic and Son Heung-Min.

[Wombatz]

the team is quite likeable

i meant as a team (though i like it that rüdiger is on form after years of being niggled at ... it's not easy being a black german footballer). they ignore the dark arts, don't do much of the tactical fouls (city look like they spend complete training sessions on that), they're willing to play and defend (and even spurs beat city this season by defending front to back with focus and energy) and, most of all, they are the most extreme and comical exemplification of the theory i first put out here when france became world champions although one part of their line-up totally malfunctioned in every game, that the best tournament team is not the one capable of playing the best ball, but the one that best manages to play around its problems. and chelsea manage to play around the problem that noone can score except from a tap-in, so that's pretty hilarious. so if i don't believe they have a chance in the final it's not because city play better but because of city's privileged cynicism (street-smartness being the wrong word here) ... otoh, pep can still implode when he perceives the gods to be against him (a good start would be players getting surprisingly booked for said cynicism)

[DarkAttraktor]

specialone

[Wombatz]

if it's all so quiet on the manager front, then will it be martinez? (good luck keeping this a secret until after the euros)

[surfer]

if it's all so quiet on the manager front, then will it be martinez? (good luck keeping this a secret until after the euros)

He's good as an English language pundit, and I'm sure his smooth talking ways have hypnotized Levy as Mourinho did. But he's clearly shown he cannot organize a defense at all, so in that whiplash way of careening from one style to complete opposite, it makes complete sense.

I havent heard anything, but my gut tells me it might be Parker, which would be horrible for all parties involved. Rodgers is unlikely, so I guess I'd narrowly prefer Potter. I think he might have the highest chance of success. Shame about Rangnick, cant grasp why he isnt a finalist. I think my nightmare scenario is that Spurs hire one of these B-listers and Arsenal sack Arteta and hand the keys to Ralf, although maybe that is giving the Kroenkes too much credit.

The various FAs dont need to dock the Super Leaguers points, they're doing a great job of that themselves. Juve out of the top 4, Madrid and Barca drop points, and City lose. I continue to go out of my way to watch The Boys from Bergamo. With all of the off season issues facing Inter, how are they not the favorites in Serie A going into next season?

[surfer]

I guess I'd narrowly prefer Potter. I think he might have the highest chance of success.

"When Swansea played Manchester City in the FA Cup, Potter asked his players in the pre-match meeting: "How do you want to die?" The result of that question was a belting performance and left Brian Kidd, Pep Guardiola’s assistant coach, gushing.

There are the stories of the end-of-season “cultural projects” at Östersund, whereby Potter and his squad would put on a show in front of their fans: rapping, reindeer husbandry and everything in between. Then there was the Swan Lake ballet production, but kickstarting one of the concerts with the Lapland national anthem sticks in the memory.

“I had to sing the first bit pretty much a capella,” Potter says, smiling. “It was not Rod Stewart, put it that way.


https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... -interview

[Wombatz]

looking forward, it's the next best thing to having fun on the field!

i think it's very much possible that rangnick won't be allowed his final project, so i'm rooting for him to get one, even if it's arsenal. he's surely underrated because of the lack of titles, but a twitter search tells me that most of the pundits get it right: make him a manager now, then move him to sports director when he himself thinks a successor would do better on the sidelines. that way you can't lose (italy wouldn't work, though, he should go to the premier league).