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

[Zantera]

Champions League has finally started as well, was happy to see Man United win, even if the game was very tight. Man City on the other hand lost, and I think the group will be very tough for them now, both Real Madrid and Dortmund are at 3 points, so it will be tough. Anyhow, time for more Premier League this weekend, the games: (games in bold are the ones I'm seeing myself, result afterwards is my thoughts on the possible outcome)

Today:

[12:45] Swansea - Everton (X)
[15:00] Chelsea - Stoke (1)
[15:00] Southampton - Aston Villa (X)
[15:00] West Bromwich - Reading (1)
[15:00] West Ham - Sunderland (1)
[15:00] Wigan - Fulham (2)

Tomorrow:

[13:30] Liverpool - Manchester United (2)
[15:00] Newcastle - Norwich (1)
[16:00] Manchester City - Arsenal (2)
[16:00] Tottenham - Queens Park Rangers (1) 

Thoughts:
Saturday naturally falls in the shadow of the awesomeness of tomorrow, but there are highlights. Swansea - Everton promises to be an interesting game with two teams that have impressed us so far, and it could be a very funny and entertaining game. At 15:00 I'm seeing Chelsea - Stoke, Chelsea are in the hunt for another 3 points, but Stoke has shown us before that they can make life hard for the good teams. Wigan - Fulham is another very interesting game, Wigan have shown us that they can play good football, but Fulham have been looking strong with the addition of Berbatov, and their new interesting Swede, Kacaniklic on the left wing. That game could go either way, but I hold Fulham as small favorites.

But tomorrow is very much the highlight of the weekend. Liverpool - Man United is not only a huge game because of history and rivalry, but they are the two most successful clubs in England, and Man United recently passed Liverpool with getting 1 more league title, so it should be a good game. Liverpool has impressed me so far in the league, they've played some amazing football, but haven't gotten much points for it. Trouble with the scoring. This game could go either way, I'm holding my team as favorites, but Liverpool might as well win it. I wouldn't be sad if we only got 1 point, but that also depends a bit on other results.
Manchester City - Arsenal is the other highlight of the day. I haven't been that impressed by City so far in the league, but Arsenal has really grown. The game against Montpellier this week in CL wasn't the best, but they won after all. Arsenal also has a fairly decent history against City, they won with 1-0 on Emirates last season, and if you go back 2 (?) seasons, Arsenal won on Etihad Stadium with 3-0, so they've shown in the past that they can beat City. City will probably be favorites though, but gogo Arsenal.

[orcus116]

Fuck yeah, Chelsea.

[Zydar]

Great victory for Man United against Liverpool

[Nekov]

Way to go Sweden! Puting a comeback against Germany being 4-0 down and with only half an hour left is not something you do every day. Congrats!

[Zydar]

Yeah I don't know what to say... I'm speechless about it all. That was the strangest game I've ever watched.

[Zantera]

I honestly thought that Germany would win by 6-0 or something so I felt pretty shocked as well. I did witness something similar last year when Arsenal had 4-0 against Newcastle at half time, but Newcastle managed to go up to 4-4.
Still, crazy game. 

[Scorpion]

I wasn't able to watch the second half of the game and when I saw the score I was all like "WTF is this shit?"

[Ruba]

Good luck indeed.

We can't even beat Georgia at home  .

[Cyclopssss]

Me as well.. first saw that 4-0 score then twenty minutes later or so It was 4-3 I was like 'What?!'  Better watch this....

Off course, there was a foul by Ibrahimovitz prior to the 4-4 (elbow) but hey..

[Zantera]

Haven't posted here in a while, sorry been kinda busy. But I'm posting here now, hopefully we can get the thread a bit more active, seeing as football is the ultimate sport.
The Premier League this weekend: (Games in bold are the ones I'm seeing)

Today:
[12:45] Manchester United vs Arsenal
[15:00] Fulham vs Everton
[15:00] Norwich vs Stoke
[15:00] Sunderland vs Aston Villa
[15:00] Swansea vs Chelsea
[15:00] Tottenham vs Wigan
[17:30] West Ham - Manchester City

Tomorrow:
[13:30] Queens Park Rangers - Reading
[16:00] Liverpool - Newcastle

Especially excited about Man United - Arsenal. Hopefully it will be a good game, and I want to see Man United win without the referee giving them horrible advantages like last weekend against Chelsea.

[Zydar]

I'll be watching the Man United game, I wouldn't mind Van Persie scoring a couple of goals against his former team

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Dat commentator! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzvQCbdAIZQ

That goal was just craazy!

[chknptpie]

Times are tough at the Ptpie household without hockey and the Mr. is attempting to get into football.

I'm having a hard time following the league set up. I wish I had some sort of visual that helped better explain. I think I have a general understanding, but then go and get the UEFA Champ league confused with the English Champ league. 

 

[Nekov]

 

Easy to get confused if you are not familiar. So, basically you have all the domestic leagues in each country, the league cups which are cups that are played along all the divisions from one country, and then you have the UEFA Champions League and the Europa League which are continental competitions in Europe.
The only way to differentiate the continental ones from the domestic ones is if you know the teams since you'll know which country they're from.

I don't know if this will help you or add more to your confusion, sorry if the later 

[chknptpie]

Thats basically a great summary of what I've spent the entire day trying to figure out! 

Looks like a few of the groups in the UEFA are very interesting going into this weekend. I don't have a team that I root for yet - who does each person on here root for? I assume its mostly teams local for the European board members?

Also - what other big name players are out there? I know Messie and Ronaldo... but thats it.

[Cyclopssss]

Messi and Ronaldo, yeah, that's about it....lol, why not take the absolute best?

Well, all Dutch teams are out, so yeah, basically, we suck. Always liked Chelsea, Liverpool, Man U and Arsenal. Won't bore you with Djnepr Djneprpretrovsk (say that three times fast) Or teams like Zenith St. Petersburg. Paris St. Germain (French team) is always nice with Zlatan Ibrahimovitz. Italian teams: AC Milan or Juventus this year.

Oh and for a good outsider, FC Bayern Munich or Schalke 04 are always nice teams to follow, plus the Portugese contignent with Braga, Porto, Benfica....

Also worth noting: January sees the start of the African Cup. If you can find it somewhere (I use Eurosport) it's a very fresh, festive and colourful (duhh) tournement with often chaotic but at least free flowing footbal.

[John94]

This may sound totally biased but to me the Champions League is boring without Liverpool in it.

[Nekov]

I like Barcelona a lot, my favorite team from Europe. From Italy I follow Juventus and from England I like Tottenham.

[chknptpie]

So far I'm liking Juventus. However, I keep hearing the name pronounced in so many different ways.

You-ven-toose
You-ven-tiss
Who-ven-toose
Who-ven-tiss

[toro]

Definetly not those last two.

On other news Shaktar, Juve, PSG and Borussia have been playing some sweet sweet football.

[Nekov]

Yes they have, I'm very eager to see the draws for the Champions League, there should be some interesting matches.

So far I'm liking Juventus. However, I keep hearing the name pronounced in so many different ways.

You-ven-toose

You're following the right Italian team . And that one would be the right pronunciation

[Nekov]

And Messi gets his 4th consecutive Golden Ball.

[njdtfan]

I never thought there would be a better player thane Pele. I have been fortunate enough to have seen/ met, even ate dinner a few times with him. The greatest soccer player i thought could never be surpassed. What we are now witnessing with Messi, is truly amazing. Only 25 years old, we are witnessing the greatest soccer player ever right now.

[njdtfan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXrltgfrrqw

all of Leo's goals this year. Impressive.

[chknptpie]

Do you mean Ballon d'or? I looked up the Golden Ball and that's a World Cup thing.

[Nekov]

Do you mean Ballon d'or? I looked up the Golden Ball and that's a World Cup thing.

Yeah. I was translating that.

[chknptpie]

I tried to do a google translate on Ballon d'or and got nothing! So it does mean "golden ball"?

[Nekov]

Yep. I guess so. That's how it's translated to spanish plus the trophy is a huge golden ball 

[orcus116]

They had a selection of Messi goals on 60 Minutes last night. Every one was outstanding. There was one he scored like 8 seconds into the game.

[Progmetty]

That guy is amazing at getting sharp angles and smooth overheads at one-on-one situations. My favorite soccer player remains Ronaldo (the Brazilian one) but I have to admit Messi is pretty amazing.

[chknptpie]

Does anyone watch BeIN Sport feeds for Barca? Roy Hudson makes the most hilarious statements:

Moves he learned from Bernie Madoff
Traveling at the speed of the USS enterprise
Messi knows the laws of physics, but the laws of physics don't know Messi!
He made those defenders disappear like the kids on Blair witch!

[Scorpion]

Thoughts on the big scandal? Is there anything out concerning which exact games were affected?

[chknptpie]

Well we are looking at:

About 380 of the suspicious matches were played in Europe, and a further 300 were identified in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

between 2008 and 2011

Thats a lot of games and a pretty wide timeframe.

[toro]

The first thing that came to my mind when reading the article was:
Barça. Chelsea. 2009.

[Zantera]

Haha yeah. Barcelona - Chelsea was horrible, I suffered so much with the Chelsea players.

Big game tonight. Real Madrid - Man United. I'm so excited, I know my team will probably go into it with defense in mind, and Real will probably do the most, but I really hope for a good result.