Football (Soccer) Thread

[mongers]

Southampton - Pompey has always been a 'decent' one here. 

Pity they're not often in the same league nowadays.

[Liep]

Learned about a new "derby" today from Football Manager, 'Derby delle Due Sicilie' is a Napoli - Parlermo match.

[Admiral Yi]

What's a fixture?

[Josephus]

What's a fixture?

fancy word for "game"

[Maladict]

What's a fixture?

fancy word for "game"

An upcoming game, specifically.

[Liep]

How an entire stadium can boo Ronaldo and cheer for Diego Costa is beyond me.

[The Larch]

How an entire stadium can boo Ronaldo and cheer for Diego Costa is beyond me.

It's Atlético fans, that explains everything.

[Liep]

I don't like VAR but mostly I don't like that it gives the players one more thing to cry to the ref about. Yellow card to any player who gets within one meter of the ref to complain.

[Liep]

2nd penalty in the City game: there was offside before the penalty, how is it still a penalty when you can review it with VAR?

[The Larch]

Chelsea hit with a two window-transfer ban for irregularities int he signing of international underage players. Couldn't happen to a nicer team.

[Tamas]

FU

Good to know FIFA still fights the good fight against breaking the rules, and corruption.

[The Larch]

FU

Good to know FIFA still fights the good fight against breaking the rules, and corruption.

If it puts an end to Chelsea's shameful strategy of hoarding young players just to loan them out and eventually sell them, it'll be for the greater good. 

Edit: For the record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_F.C.#Out_on_loan. That's 42 players from Chelsea currently on loan in other clubs. You can maybe scratch a couple of them off, as those loans are parts of arrangements for transfers of senior team players (Pulisic or Morata, for instance), but the vast majority of them are basically the result of a strategy of gaming the system.

For comparison, Arsenal has 9 players out on loan, Liverpool 13 (already a lot, IMO), Man City 6 and Man Utd 3.

I wouldn't mind if the cases of Spanish teams are looked into, lest I be accused of bias. Real Madrid have currently 25 players on loan, which is also well into outrageous territory. I checked other European top teams and apparently only Juventus, with 47 (!!!) players currently on loan has Chelsea beaten in that regard.

[Tamas]

If it forces them to actually use some of those players then yes I agree. But I am afraid they'll just sulk and sink. Especially with Sarri in charge.

I am really turning against that guy. They managed to score some goals against a weak Malmo after they went down to 10 men. This coincided with Jorginho, his BFF, coming in from the bench. So post-match, Sarri was all "see I told you we need him".

[Grey Fox]

What's the issue with having 40+ players on loan?

[Josephus]

What's the issue with having 40+ players on loan?

That's not the issue. The issue is that Chelsea are breaking the rules regarding signing internationals under the age of 18. The 40 players on loan is the result of the issue, and the reason they do it