Football (Soccer) Thread

[celedhring]

Oh wow, I just checked La Liga. Haven't paid attention to it at all this year, Barca have absolutely crushed it.
How's that happened?- at the beginning of the year wasn't all the talk on how poor they are, imminent bankruptcy, etc...

Essentially, we packaged and sold in advance a number of media rights to raise money for signings. It's essentially feast today, famine tomorrow.

[Threviel]

On other league winning. Will Halland get to keep the trophy at home? Its only right.

Apparently my home region, Halland, has gotten a lot more web traffic on tourist sites since Haaland became famous. Wonder why really.

[Josquius]

Halland

Google says Did you mean: Haaland?

 

[Jacob]

Apparently my home region, Halland, has gotten a lot more web traffic on tourist sites since Haaland became famous. Wonder why really.

From Halland? Are you of Danish descent or did your people move there after 1658?

[Admiral Yi]

Lampard's constantly changing lineup gives the impression of desperation.

Still love the way he talks and carries himself though.

[Threviel]

Apparently my home region, Halland, has gotten a lot more web traffic on tourist sites since Haaland became famous. Wonder why really.

From Halland? Are you of Danish descent or did your people move there after 1658?

One half inbred coastal fishing village stock which I genealogicked back to Danish times, the church books were sent to Copenhagen and the ship sank, so that's as far as I got.

One half Danzig/Hamburg German.

[FunkMonk]

Financial Criminals FC walking into the treble

[FunkMonk]

https://twitter.com/_SamAlex/status/1658921354664505344?t=sH_va8lrJFCERm5R_6ASiA&s=19

City look special. Really special. Testament to what can be achieved with £2 billion, a manager with an offshore account, a suspended 2-year ban from European competition and 115 charges of financial irregularity.

[HVC]

  it really is a beautiful game

[celedhring]

Paraphrasing Churchill, if I learnt that Real Madrid played City,  I'd make sure to make at least a positive reference to Man City in a message board.

[Tamas]

Indeed. The total corruption of English football is a small price to pay to see Real Madrid humiliated.

[Josquius]

Hopefully accelerationist theories prove correct and City's success draws more attention to how fucked the oil state take overs are.

[FunkMonk]

Hopefully accelerationist theories prove correct and City's success draws more attention to how fucked the oil state take overs are.

Pep Guardiola's Manchester City is now the face of the English Premier League. They can't let their darling team implode now at their height. They will wait until another nation-state club (Newcastle) dethrones City.

Anyway, this is a good piece on City eviscerating Real Madrid yesterday:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/may/17/manchester-citys-inexorable-hard-power-crushes-real-madrid

And so one of the world's richest states spends years trying to hire the world's greatest coach, succeeds, and then gives him literally everything he needs. Every other club in the world, with the exception of Paris Saint-Germain, has to operate within the constraints of finance or fortune. Every other club in the world has flaws or problem areas that they can't address right now, but hope to at some point in the future. Guardiola, by contrast, gets the staff he wants, the players he wants when he wants them, gets their replacements ahead of schedule.

So you don't just sign Erling Haaland, you sign Julián Álvarez to give him a rest. Kalvin Phillips arrives for £45m, doesn't play all season, and it's fine. You decide – and just reflect on the breathtaking audacity of this for a second – that you need an upgrade on Phil Foden, and so up pops Jack Grealish. If someone accuses you of breaking the rules, you hire the world's greatest lawyers to shoot them down. This is perfection, but not so much the perfection of great art as the perfection of a finely-executed military campaign, the perfection of unlimited wealth, the perfection of political strength, the perfection of a pointless mile-high crystal pyramid in the middle of the desert. No academy players and no Mancunians started for City last night. Does this matter? Does anything matter?

Nobody should begrudge City fans their joy at this point. This has been their journey and their success as much as anyone else's, and with a little perspective they may even realise that they are not as hated as they sometimes assume. Rather, the overwhelming sensation here for the neutral is indifference, a shrug at the inexorable inevitability of hard power. Everybody in this sport is tainted a little, and even on this unlevel playing field City fans have earned their moment of consummate triumph. By the same token, nobody else is obliged to feel anything about it whatsoever.

[Zoupa]

Even though dictatorships sportswashing truly gets on my nerves, the fact you're losing your shit over ManCity beating Arsenal to the league truly makes this car crash of a Tottenham season just a little bit sweeter. 

[FunkMonk]

Even though dictatorships sportswashing truly gets on my nerves, the fact you're losing your shit over ManCity beating Arsenal to the league truly makes this car crash of a Tottenham season just a little bit sweeter. 

I thought something similar when Spurs lost to Brentford today