Football (Soccer) Thread

[The Larch]

Haha River Plate.  I guess this means no more superclasico? (although Boca may be joining them before to long the way they have been playing)

Guess what, just after River got relegated, the Argentine FA is announcing that for the 2012/13 season divisions 1 and 2 of the Argentine footie piramid will merge, creating a top division with 38 teams on it. It'll be divided in two 19 team groups, being Boca in one group and River in the other. Teams will play against the other teams in their groups and "clásicos" will be played between one team from each group ocasionally. After 19 games teams will be divided again into two groups, a "Championship" group that will play for the title and the rest that will battle against relegation. And it seems to have been approved almost unanimously by all the teams. Talk about a broken country...

That...hurts my head.

It's not as if the current system was clearer, relegation was calculated through 3 season averages (yet River still got relegated anyway). They've been doing this since the early 80s when, you guessed it, River almost got relegated once.

And there are two league champions each season, one for the Apertura (1st leg) and another for the Clausura (2nd leg). This was after the 91-92 season, IIRC, when the winner of each leg had to play each other for the league title and, you guessed it, Boca lost the game against Newell's Old Boys, thus missing their first league title in 10 years.

Argentinian football is a mess.

[The Larch]

Haha River Plate.  I guess this means no more superclasico? (although Boca may be joining them before to long the way they have been playing)

Guess what, just after River got relegated, the Argentine FA is announcing that for the 2012/13 season divisions 1 and 2 of the Argentine footie piramid will merge, creating a top division with 38 teams on it. It'll be divided in two 19 team groups, being Boca in one group and River in the other. Teams will play against the other teams in their groups and "clásicos" will be played between one team from each group ocasionally. After 19 games teams will be divided again into two groups, a "Championship" group that will play for the title and the rest that will battle against relegation. And it seems to have been approved almost unanimously by all the teams. Talk about a broken country...

Derspeiss would know better than me, but I've watched some local sports coverage from Argentina and even though neither Boca nor River has been good recently, they get by far the most coverage. From a fan interest perspective, I think the Argentine league is basically Boca and River and a bunch of foils for Boca and River. So I can see why they are doing this, even if it looks ridiculous. And I can see why the other teams wouldn't stand in the way--if you are the Washington Generals, you won't sell many tickets if you can't match up with the Globetrotters.

What is crazy is that teams as popular as Boca and River still aren't good, and are getting relegated. I've been told that is because the top levels of Argentine football are incredibly corrupt, and make decisions like turning over the national team to Maradona, but I don't know.

The Argentinian football league is de facto controlled by the state, as they're the ones who have the monopoly on tv rights through a "presidential media initiative" called Football for everyone (Fútbol para todos) and thus control the main money flow for the clubs. Some club presidents from minor clubs said that they didn't agree with the restructuring but whoever pays the piper picks the song, so they had to accept.

And yes, the top levels of Argentinian football are incredibly corrupt, most of all the national FA which is the personal fiefdom of Julio Grondona, its president for the last 32 years, who also serves as FIFA's VP. On top of that both Boca and River are also incredibly mismanaged, always selling their promising youngsters at the earlier opportunity for quick bucks despite getting most of the TV rights money while also being constantly indebted. There were serious concerns about River having to fold if it didn't get promoted right away, so I guess that this is why they restructured the league.

[Norgy]

Dear me, the Norwegian clubs are really poor in Europe. 

[dps]

Bob Bradley's out as coach of the US national team.

[Josephus]

Bit of a surprise that one. I can't remmber now, did they win the Gold Cup?

[dps]

Bit of a surprise that one. I can't remmber now, did they win the Gold Cup?

No, lost 4-2 to Mexico, after leading 2-0.

That probably sealed his fate.  Apparantly, he had the team pressing for more goals instead of clamping down on defense when up 2-nil.

[FunkMonk]

Bob Bradley's out as coach of the US national team.

Not sure how I feel about this. I don't have this hatred of him like I've seen from a lot of USMNT supporters. The 2009 Confed Cup was wonderful and the team fared well enough in WC2010, even if the Ghana game was a disappointment. The Gold Cup performances were largely terrible, though. Bradley seems to have run out of steam, so letting him go now seems the right thing to do.

I'd like to see a foreign coach. So who's looking for a job now? Rafa? 

[Josephus]

Mourinho might see it as a challenge. "I am the special one. I can make America win the World Cup."

[Duque de Bragança]

Bob Bradley's out as coach of the US national team.

Not sure how I feel about this. I don't have this hatred of him like I've seen from a lot of USMNT supporters. The 2009 Confed Cup was wonderful and the team fared well enough in WC2010, even if the Ghana game was a disappointment. The Gold Cup performances were largely terrible, though. Bradley seems to have run out of steam, so letting him go now seems the right thing to do.

I'd like to see a foreign coach. So who's looking for a job now? Rafa? 

Domenech 

[FunkMonk]

Mourinho might see it as a challenge. "I am the special one. I can make America win the World Cup."

yespls 

[Norgy]

Mourinho might see it as a challenge. "I am the special one. I can make America win the World Cup."

Say what you will about his personality and his Messianic complex, but he really gets results.
His tactics may not be the most good-looking, but you can't really argue with the results.

My guess is that he comes with a price tag that makes him unavailable to any club outside the top ten richest in the world, though.

[FunkMonk]

El Diego for USMNT coach.

[Josquius]

Being a club manager and being a national manager are very different things.
Though I am curious how he would do as US manager.

Dear me, the Norwegian clubs are really poor in Europe. 

You should merge with the other Scandis into one league. You could get up to a pretty good standard then IMO.

[Josephus]

Rumour has it that Klinsmann is being touted.

[Norgy]

You should merge with the other Scandis into one league. You could get up to a pretty good standard then IMO.

The idea has been out there for a while. The attempt to create a Nordic league in winter in the form of Royal League (the name is an ABERRATION!!) crashed.

Problems: Should each country have quotas? 3-4 teams from each country? Distances. Scandinavia is huge. From Tromsø to Malmö, that's really far, and with only a handful of clubs managing above 15.000 on average attendance, I see the financial problems becoming huge. You could of course just start with franchises like in North America.