The Official Football (Soccer) Thread (v. It's starting again!)

[soupytwist]

The Germans are out.  Both Dortmund and B. Munich declare  they aren't going to be part of this.  Also rumoured that PSG might rule themselves out.

I only believe this when the super league has really started and they still aren't part of it. Till then I see it as lip service to not anger the fans. Especially Bayern München has never shied away from more money.

The German league has always been more fan oriented that the other big leagues.

Basically there are only 4 big leagues in Europe - England, Spain, Italy and Germany with one seemingly not wanting to get involved it does look a little shit.  PSG are really the only current club that could be classed as 'super' outside of those leagues.   I guess you either go to clubs like Ajax, Porto, Monaco and Benefica or add more Italian/Spanish sides - Roma, Lazio, Napoli, Seville, Valencia etc..

[Kwyjibo]

The German league has always been more fan oriented that the other big leagues.

That may be in comparison to the other big leagues, but the majority of german fans aren't really happy with how things are done here.

Rummenigge, a man I really liked when he played for the national team, but who grew more and more arrogant and despicable since he turned funtionary, is as of today a UEFA executive. That may be part of the reason why he said Bayern München wouldn't join the super league.

[soupytwist]

Rumours Chelsea are about to withdraw.

[Kwyjibo]

I wonder if those clubs anticipated an anti-super-league backlash that strong. They must've known that UEFA and probably FIFA would protest. But were they naive/stupid enough to think that the fans will mostly agree with their ideas? And that people would buy those outright lies and fairy tales about saving football in difficult times as the driving motive?

[Kwyjibo]

Rumours Chelsea are about to withdraw.

Manchester City also seems to get cold feet.

[Nekov]

Welp, that was short lived  . I love that fans were able to unite and bring this down, I just wish people fought more for this beautiful sport.

[ariich]

Arsenal are out too: https://www.arsenal.com/news/open-letter-our-fans

Damn that really did not last long.

[soupytwist]

All six England clubs out!

[faizoff]

wow I was just trying to get caught up about the formation of the super league and what it actually meant, looks like I don't have to now.

[MirrorMask]

I wonder if those clubs anticipated an anti-super-league backlash that strong. They must've known that UEFA and probably FIFA would protest. But were they naive/stupid enough to think that the fans will mostly agree with their ideas? And that people would buy those outright lies and fairy tales about saving football in difficult times as the driving motive?

Cases are two:

- There are behind the scenes machinations, secret deals, pressures and even blackmails that we know nothing about.

- Yes, they really are that stupid, greed ate common sense and they really thought everyone would roll with it.

[Nekov]

Arsenal are out too: https://www.arsenal.com/news/open-letter-our-fans

Damn that really did not last long.

Apparently your government is capable of doing some good. Who would have thought...

[MirrorMask]

That Arsenal statement is very nice. It might not be 100% sincere and have some corporate talk here and there, but still, the board signed a statement that said "We made a mistake and we apologize for it" and "we have heard you". All the other teams made shorter and even more corporate-ish statements. Kudos to Arsenal for willing to do that (even if it's not sincere).

[soupytwist]

That Arsenal statement is very nice. It might not be 100% sincere and have some corporate talk here and there, but still, the board signed a statement that said "We made a mistake and we apologize for it" and "we have heard you". All the other teams made shorter and even more corporate-ish statements. Kudos to Arsenal for willing to do that (even if it's not sincere).

Certainly better than the Spurs one!

[hunnus2000]

That's gotta be a record for the world's shortest super league. 

[ariich]

Arsenal are out too: https://www.arsenal.com/news/open-letter-our-fans

Damn that really did not last long.

Apparently your government is capable of doing some good. Who would have thought...

The government didn't really do anything other than jump on the bandwagon.

That Arsenal statement is very nice. It might not be 100% sincere and have some corporate talk here and there, but still, the board signed a statement that said "We made a mistake and we apologize for it" and "we have heard you". All the other teams made shorter and even more corporate-ish statements. Kudos to Arsenal for willing to do that (even if it's not sincere).

Yeah, it came across really well.

[MirrorMask]

Anyway, things we've learnt from this, or at least got a vivid reminder of:

- Being a successful and rich CEO doesn't make you authomatically competent. CEOs can and WILL screw up majorly and spectacularly, often demostranting a jarring disconnect from reality and what the common man thinks;

- "too big to fail" is a thing and apparently t's acceptable that some companies are allowed to go in crippling debt rather than failing like it would happen to your Uncle Joe's shop if he would go down in debt;

- UEFA and FIFA are no saints and they have so many faults in bringing football to this point, but it's also laughable how the presidents whine "If we don't something football will die". No, YOUR TEAM will die, and if you've spent years spending more than you could, well, it's on you. Buh-uuuuh, woe is me, we paid 15 millions so many players for so many years, big bad UEFA doesn't want to pay us more TV rights to come back from these losses, how can we go on, whaaa whaaa whaa. Screw you.

[Nekov]

Very well said. I do agree with some of the statements that football can't continue the way it is right now, but not for the reasons they mention. I believe that UEFA should impose some sort of CAP like that of the American sports and money should be shared more equally. That would bring back a the real competition and would prevent more Manchester Citys and PSGs from showing up and distorting the landscape.
I doubt that FIFA or UEFA will go that far, but I think something like will be necessary if they want to keep the sport interesting.

[Kwyjibo]

Sadly most of the teams that are deep in debt don't think about cutting costs but think about generating more income. That's the super league for you and that's to a slightly lesser degree UEFA and FIFA.

Add corrupt functionaries to the mix and you get the football we have today.

[MirrorMask]

I believe that UEFA should impose some sort of CAP like that of the American sports and money should be shared more equally. That would bring back a the real competition and would prevent more Manchester Citys and PSGs from showing up and distorting the landscape.

Asking as totally ignorant about NBA - is the salary cap actually and truly being respected? because yeah, you can say apply a rule that no football player can be paid more than 2 millions, but if, say, Mbappè gets a random sponsorship deal with a company that "casually" has ties with the Qatar dude that owns PSG........

[Nekov]

I believe that UEFA should impose some sort of CAP like that of the American sports and money should be shared more equally. That would bring back a the real competition and would prevent more Manchester Citys and PSGs from showing up and distorting the landscape.

Asking as totally ignorant about NBA - is the salary cap actually and truly being respected? because yeah, you can say apply a rule that no football player can be paid more than 2 millions, but if, say, Mbappè gets a random sponsorship deal with a company that "casually" has ties with the Qatar dude that owns PSG........

This question is not easy to answer because the NBA system is quite complex. There is a soft CAP line which teams can cross depending on the players contracts. Since the way players are contracted in football is completely different than how they do it in the NBA I don't think this really matters. Then there's a luxury tax threshold. Teams that are over that threshold need to pay the NBA 1 dollar per dollar they exceed. So, let's say the threshold is 100M and a team is paying 110M in salaries, they also have to pay an additional 10M to the NBA. This tax is progressive as well so the more consecutive seasons you are over the threshold, the more tax you pay. Finally, there is a hard cap which doesn't really matter since teams usually don't get there.

So, going back to your question. I have thought about the sponsorship deals and unfortunately I don't think there is anything that can be done about that. But, I believe that having a cap system similar to the one in the NBA could lead to more competitiveness. That luxury tax in the NBA works wonders because that money is then spread between the teams. If a team wants to be over the limit and pay the tax because they have money that's great because in the end, that benefits the little teams as well and gives them a chance to be competitive.

[Cool Chris]

Not following this story at all but stumbled upon this and wanted to comment.

But, I believe that having a cap system similar to the one in the NBA could lead to more competitiveness. That luxury tax in the NBA works wonders because that money is then spread between the teams. If a team wants to be over the limit and pay the tax because they have money that's great because in the end, that benefits the little teams as well and gives them a chance to be competitive.

Are there any requirements on how these teams that receive this luxury tax money spend it? The owners of some pro sports teams don't spend more money because they don't have it to spend. Others don't spend it because they don't want to. Not every sports owner is a Jerry Jones or George Steinbrenner whose lives, and thus their money, revolve around their team. I don't want to get in to the weeds too much on the business side of sports, because it's just billionaires doing business deals beyond the scope and realities of all of us here, but I thought it worth asking.

[Nekov]

That's beyond my knowledge honestly. Seeing how the NBA works there's probably a clause about how that money can be used but I would need to do some research into that. But, obviously the leagues could introduce a clause about spending that money in the training grounds or something of the sort

[Anguyen92]

That's beyond my knowledge honestly. Seeing how the NBA works there's probably a clause about how that money can be used but I would need to do some research into that. But, obviously the leagues could introduce a clause about spending that money in the training grounds or something of the sort

Well, in the NHL, in a hard, and flat for the next few years, cap salary of $81.5 million dollars to spend on players, any advantage that teams with owners that have big pockets in major cities (Toronto, NYC, Chicago, LA, Boston, etc.) is always going to have a big edge (outside of player roster building) when it comes to the management they hire, which includes president of hockey operations, top-tier training facilities, can bid top dollar for any coaches that are available and no other teams would oppose it.  Why?  Because the league has a revenue-sharing approach across the league that is used to keep the lower-valued tier teams going.  Now, I don't know anything about how the NHL does their revenue-sharing and I probably can't explain it since I don't know want to look at the research on it as it may get too complicated for me to understand.

Also, on the topic of cap, teams with owners with big pockets are willing to take on contracts of players from other teams that are injured for the rest of the terms of their contracts as a way to get over the cap as an approach to sign their players to the terms they like.  It's complicated math at that point.  Again, the concept of Long-term injury reverse or LTIR, is another complicated topic that I want to get into learning, but it seems too complicated to understand.  Teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs always seemed to take on LTIR contracts and make it work for them to get their active players under the so-called Salary Cap.  It boggles the mind.  Heck, last off-season, the Tampa Bay Lightning had some issues trying to sign a few of their players at the number they want without going over the cap and their remedy to solve the problem this season was, by pure coincidence, their best player was going to be out for the season due to an injury that needed surgery.  So Tampa Bay made some trades to take on some LTIR contracts from other teams and was able to get under the cap for their active players for the season.  Again, it's complicated math that I really want to learn more of.

[Evermind]

On the positive my team Leicester City reached their first FA Cup final for 50 years yesterday (and they have never won it before) - tough final vs an inform Chelsea though.

Hey congrats!

Don't get me wrong, I was rooting for Leicester, but I thought that Chelsea goal was legit. That offside VAR decision was kinda bullshit. Still good job though, big win for Leicester here.

[MirrorMask]

National championships are about to end.

In Italy, Germany and England, all champions won without playing. The immediate runners up failed to win, and so their victory was mathematical, even without playing. I know this is how modern football works and there are TV rights and blah blah blah, but it sucks that a team can become champion without even playing. In Italy there's a tight, tight race for the 3 remaining slots for the next Champions League - all 4 teams involved in a fight for 3 slots are playing apart on this weekend. I miss the days when all matches were being played together and you couldn't know what was coming.

Some changes here and there anyway:

- England is always the least predictable of competitions, you don't know already from the first match who wins, Liverpool didn't repeat themselves and Manchester City won.
- In Italy Juventus abdicated after 9 years, Inter won.
- In France, Lille needs a win to steal the championship away from PSG.
- Atletico Madrid just might snatch the title away from the two usual spanish suspects.
- In Portugal, Sporting CP won the championship ending 20 years of Porto / Benfica dualism.
- 9th title in a row, however, for Bayern Munich.

Now on to Manchester City vs Chelsea for the Champions League! I'll probably root for Chelsea, sure, they're filthy rich with Abramovich behind them, but at least they had some history and are at the top since 20 years or so, City were a random team that got money poured all over them, just like PSG, and it seems that financial fair play rules don't apply for them, so it would be ironic to see how money can't buy you a cup. Uh well, may the best team win!

[Kwyjibo]

Sadly the german league has turned into the most boring league in Europe for the last couple of years as far as championship goes. And there's really no one in sight, that can realistically beat Bayern Munich in the next few years imo.

[MirrorMask]

Never say never. Juventus failed to win, even though they had a change of manager and they put Pirlo who had no experience. What's amazing is that they're risking to not even qualify for the Champions League.

Also in France you could say that it's predictable because PSG has all the money - and yet Lille might steal the victory away from them for only 3 points.

So while I fully agree that the Bundesliga is boring because Bayern Munich is the reigning champion by default, all you need is a couple of bad matches and a strong season from an opponent for things to go sideways. Did PSG have a bad season in France? no, as usual they're at the top of their game, this time around it happened that another team won one match more than them.

[MirrorMask]

Atletico Madrid has won La Liga in Spain! at expense of the usual suspects, Real Madrid and Barcelona!

The iberian peninsula revolution is completed by Sporting CP in Portugal, champions after 20 years of the same old same old Porto or Benfica.

Tomorrow Lille has to win their match to steal the french championship away from P$G.

And always tomorrow night, maybe Juventus will be kicked out of the next Champions League, it's all up to my Milan facing "mini Leicester" Atalanta who have qualified for the third year in a row for the Champions League... where in the last edition they were 3 minutes away from eliminating PSG!

[MirrorMask]

So, it's all over!

ENGLAND: The usual suspects qualified for the Champions League. Leicester fans and West Ham / Iron Maiden fans are left out of the Champions League  Manchester City won, Liverpool didn't repeat themselves.

ITALY: Juventus' 9 years long reign ends in favor of Inter, and my Milan finally returns to Champions League after 7 long years  (yeah, in Italy we don't use the letters, we never say FC Internazionale, AC Milan.... cultural differences, deal with it)

SPAIN: At the last match, Atletico Madrid wins the Liga, in face of the usual Real Madrid, with behind the other usual Barcelona.

FRANCE: Lille by ONE POINT steals away the championship from the ultra rich hands of PSG, 700 or whatever billions spent to fail in the Champions League and fail in the championship, congrats 

PORTUGAL: Sporting CP won the title after TWENTY YEARS of the usual division between Porto and Benfica only.

GERMANY: Nothing to see year, Bayern Munich won their 9th title.

So, blame it on Covid or just on happenstance, but, Germany aside, this has been a terrible year for those used to win, they all failed! now next year's Champions League is gonna be full of group of deaths, with all the giants not being championship winners!

And this saturday the final act, Champions League final, Manchester City vs Chelsea.... and then we can all concentrate on Euro 2020 and hate each other's nations 

[Zydar]

I'm still astounded that Man United (my team) managed to get 2nd place despite playing pretty bad all season. Although they went undefeated on away games throughout the season.

That EL final against Villarreal will be very interesting.

[MirrorMask]

The hell I just watched! TWENTY TWO penalties!!! EVERYONE scored, 20 goals out of 20, and so the goalkeepers had to face each other, with ManUTD goalie making a fatal mistake.

Villareal wins the Europa League after 22 penalties and 21 goals, it must be a worldwide record when it comes to final matches!

[Nekov]

The hell I just watched! TWENTY TWO penalties!!! EVERYONE scored, 20 goals out of 20, and so the goalkeepers had to face each other, with ManUTD goalie making a fatal mistake.

Villareal wins the Europa League after 22 penalties and 21 goals, it must be a worldwide record when it comes to final matches!

That was beyond great. Almost all of them shot great penalties, even Rulli. I'm happy for Villareal even though I don't like the kind of football Emery plays. It's nice when the underdog gets the price

[MirrorMask]

Wanna bet that now Manchester City and Chelsea are training their goalkeepers to kick penalties, just in case 

[Nekov]

Well, Saturday's game was a hard fought one, more than I thought it would be. I think Guardiola lost the game the moment he decided to leave Fernandinho out of the initial squad. City had no balance in midfield and they suffered greatly for it. As great a manager that he is, he always makes mistakes in these important Champions League games. I think his brilliance gets the best of him and instead of going with something that has worked out before he tries to surprise the rival but ends up confusing his own team.


On another note, this beautiful sport of us keeps demonstrating that money is all that matters. Copa America is supposed to be held this year. Initially, half of it was going to be played in Colombia and half in Argentina. Due to the social crisis in Colombia, they decided to hold the whole thing in Argentina. However, yesterday they announced that because the Covid situation here is pretty bad they have decided that it won't be held here and are looking at other options. The interesting thing is that the cup is supposed to start in 10 days. My bet is that this ends up being held in the US. No other country in America could hold the tournament given the Covid/social crisis situations.

[MirrorMask]

Well, Saturday's game was a hard fought one, more than I thought it would be. I think Guardiola lost the game the moment he decided to leave Fernandinho out of the initial squad. City had no balance in midfield and they suffered greatly for it. As great a manager that he is, he always makes mistakes in these important Champions League games. I think his brilliance gets the best of him and instead of going with something that has worked out before he tries to surprise the rival but ends up confusing his own team.

Yeah, the match was good, it was also ahestetically pleasant, blue vs azure, it was nice to watch 

It was rich vs. ultra rich so I was rooting for Chelsea, after all I visited London, so it was nice to see them win.

Pity for the Copa America!