Football (Soccer) Thread

[Syt]

PSG coach fired!
Thomas Tuchel, with a mere six months of contract remaining with the club. Despite winning 4-0 in the last game, PSG is only third in the French League. The Final 8 final last season and the qualification to the round of 16 in the CL was not enough. Maybe the interview given to a German channel was the last straw but reports of bad relationship with Leonardo, sporting Director, have been heard for quite a while.

In short, more PSG nouveau riche comedy. 

Curious side note: Jürgen Klopp's clubs before Liverpool were Mainz and Dortmund. Tuchel's clubs before PSG were Mainz and Dortmund, directly succeeding Klopp each time.

[FunkMonk]

Genuinely shocked that Arsenal defeated Chelsea. It's a True Christmas Miracle.

Today's matches are falling a good way for Everton to take on Sheffield United who still only have 1 point. And I, for one, am looking forward to losing 3-1

Sheffield United have 2 points now actually 

My wife adopted Sheffield United as her team to root for this season because they only had 1 point and she felt really bad for them

[Sheilbh]

My wife adopted Sheffield United as her team to root for this season because they only had 1 point and she felt really bad for them

But they're a good proper team to root for. But you might not have much joy - no idea really what's gone wrong there.

On the other hand I still cannot deal with Ancelotti as our manager or how great he is. Win a load of games at the start of the season playing absurd, fun attacking football (but ship 3 goals to West Brom ), form dips and we lose a load of key players to injuries etc and he's now got us grinding out four wins (Chelsea, Leicester, Arsenal, Sheffield). It's everything you want from an Italian coach

He is still so good.

[FunkMonk]

I've always liked Ancelotti and I've always liked Everton so it is meant to be. 

[Josquius]

My wife adopted Sheffield United as her team to root for this season because they only had 1 point and she felt really bad for them

But they're a good proper team to root for. But you might not have much joy - no idea really what's gone wrong there.

They were totally reliant on their defence, playing every game like a lower division team against man Utd in the cup. They had a very good keeper on loan who they've lost and with a season to analyse everyone else has figured out how to get past their cheap park the bus ways.
Last year was a freak event, which they stupidly thought they could repeat rather than investing.

[celedhring]

A friend of mine met his wife while doing an Erasmus in Sheffield* and he became a Wed fan, so he's enjoying this mightily.

*Discontinued experience

[Sheilbh]

They were totally reliant on their defence, playing every game like a lower division team against man Utd in the cup. They had a very good keeper on loan who they've lost and with a season to analyse everyone else has figured out how to get past their cheap park the bus ways.
Last year was a freak event, which they stupidly thought they could repeat rather than investing.

It's a fair point on Henderson.

But I don't know - I quite liked watching them last year, not least because they were doing something different. A bit like how I quite like watching Burnley (unless my team is playing them) because they're quite distinctive. It just feels like it's fallen off a cliff.

[Sheilbh]

Can I just shock you? I like Sam Allardyce. Despite what I just said earlier.

Edit: Incidentally there was a lovely Twitter exchange between Mike Duncan (of Revolutions etc) and Jonathan Wilson, because Duncan's started reading Wilson's books through lockdown now he's been based in Europe and following football.

But Duncan made an interesting point that basically one of the themes of Wilson's books is that there are loads of different sort of divisions in football and debates between them. One of the ones that Wilson talks about and that is really attractive to fans is the idealist (play beautiful, entertain everyone and try to win) v pragmatists (just win). And Duncan noticed that this conflict just doesn't exist within American sports - every head coach is a pragmatist and winning is all they want. He later said that if things get boring/ugly then maybe the leagues would change the rules, but then everyone is a pragmatist within the rules.

No idea if it's true but I found it really interesting especially as football is particularly big on this division - e.g. Barcelona's never-ending conflict between the conservative wing and Cruyffist wing.

[The Larch]

I did see that exchange and found it quite interesting. I don't know enough about many US sports, but it's true that, at least at surface level, they're quite more "mechanical" than footie. Basketball does indeed have a kind of debate about style, but it's not at the same level as in football. Baseball seems purely mechanistic to me, maybe the obsession with stats helps that perception.

[Syt]

Tbf, football hasn't been above making rule changes to make matches more interesting, like the 1992 back-pass rule.

I remember the times when goalies could pick up any ball coming to them, even from their own team. Many's the match that would have a team's defense/midfield push the ball to each other before passing back to the goalie who'd pick it up and then spend 10, 20, seconds with it before rolling/kicking it back to his team.

[celedhring]

Can I just shock you? I like Sam Allardyce. Despite what I just said earlier.

Edit: Incidentally there was a lovely Twitter exchange between Mike Duncan (of Revolutions etc) and Jonathan Wilson, because Duncan's started reading Wilson's books through lockdown now he's been based in Europe and following football.

But Duncan made an interesting point that basically one of the themes of Wilson's books is that there are loads of different sort of divisions in football and debates between them. One of the ones that Wilson talks about and that is really attractive to fans is the idealist (play beautiful, entertain everyone and try to win) v pragmatists (just win). And Duncan noticed that this conflict just doesn't exist within American sports - every head coach is a pragmatist and winning is all they want. He later said that if things get boring/ugly then maybe the leagues would change the rules, but then everyone is a pragmatist within the rules.

No idea if it's true but I found it really interesting especially as football is particularly big on this division - e.g. Barcelona's never-ending conflict between the conservative wing and Cruyffist wing.

I believe the reason pragmatism isn't so prevalent in football is because analytics haven't cracked the game yet. Yank sports are very easy to break down into definite play actions (a possession in basketball, a down in football, an at-bat in baseball) which then you can try to make more efficient, while football is far blurrier - only set pieces are like that and they are indeed the bread and butter of the Allardyces and Pulises of the world. Thus a college basketball coach can go "you all start shooting threes" and easily make the case how that wins games, while in football that's not really there.

I presume that the statheads will eventually crack football and ruin it for everyone like they have done with basketball.

[The Larch]

Can I just shock you? I like Sam Allardyce. Despite what I just said earlier.

Edit: Incidentally there was a lovely Twitter exchange between Mike Duncan (of Revolutions etc) and Jonathan Wilson, because Duncan's started reading Wilson's books through lockdown now he's been based in Europe and following football.

But Duncan made an interesting point that basically one of the themes of Wilson's books is that there are loads of different sort of divisions in football and debates between them. One of the ones that Wilson talks about and that is really attractive to fans is the idealist (play beautiful, entertain everyone and try to win) v pragmatists (just win). And Duncan noticed that this conflict just doesn't exist within American sports - every head coach is a pragmatist and winning is all they want. He later said that if things get boring/ugly then maybe the leagues would change the rules, but then everyone is a pragmatist within the rules.

No idea if it's true but I found it really interesting especially as football is particularly big on this division - e.g. Barcelona's never-ending conflict between the conservative wing and Cruyffist wing.

I believe the reason pragmatism isn't so prevalent in football is because analytics haven't cracked the game yet. Yank sports are very easy to break down into definite play actions (a possession in basketball, a down in football, an at-bat in baseball) which then you can try to make more efficient, while football is far blurrier - only set pieces are like that and they are indeed the bread and butter of the Allardyces and Pulises of the world. Thus a college basketball coach can go "you all start shooting threes" and easily make the case how that wins games, while in football that's not really there.

I presume that the statheads will eventually crack football and ruin it for everyone like they have done with basketball.

They're starting out to creep in, though. At least it's more noticeable in American media, where from a couple of years or so you can see things like "Expected goals" and stuff like that quoted in analysis pieces.

[Josquius]

As a manager Allardyce is very good indeed. He turned Sunderland into a solid mid table side.
Then the cunt went off to England for a week....

[Threviel]

Wasn't Wimbledon's tactics based around a mathematical view of football? From what I've understood they based their tactics around an analysis of how goals are made and what you have to do to score. Can't really argue with their success either. The problem was that the football they played was horribly boring. Also the team culture seems to not really have been nice and friendly.

The Norwegian coach Drillo was a famous adherent, claiming that if you weren't shooting at goal after 4-5 ball contacts you might as well not play. The anti-Barcelona tactic you might say. The teams practising this has always been underdogs, would be fun to see a good team try.

And I listened to an interesting podcast that discussed quality vs quantity. Football is one of those sports where the worst players quality is more important than the best. So instead of buying Messi for billions it would have more effect to replace the five worst players on the team. The galacticos would be a good example of that theory, some of the world's absolutely best players and then the rest a second rate junior team, did not end super well.

So, say that a large club were to think like that with players and then play like Norway or Iceland, perhaps they would be really successful.

[celedhring]

Well, superstars in football are a bit overrated. When you have 11 people on the pitch, the influence of a single player will be less than for example basketball superstars. Guardiola's Barça was amazing not because of Messi, but because of Messi and Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Dani Alves, Puyol, Piqué, Villa/Henry... Christ, what a side that was.

We had a discussion once among a few friends about who was the single most influential player in all of the most famous team sports, we tentatively agred it would be a Quarterback in yank football, which we guessed would then make Brady the goat of all goats.