Football (Soccer) Thread

[Admiral Yi]

And excellent penalty killing Chelsea. 

[Sheilbh]

I knew it.  Richarlison is poison.

Leave Richarlison alone!

He's fine

My suspicion - even before the recent arrest - is that Sigurdsson is poison

[Zoupa]

Zoupa's Spurs report, matchday 3: Watford at Tottenham.

1st half: Watford starts on the right foot, they're the more threatening side for the first 15 minutes or so. After that, Spurs monopolize the ball and Watford plays ULTRA defensive. Literally 11 players behind the ball, 11 players in the box for corners (which I don't think I've ever seen). The game becomes a puzzle that Spurs need to unlock, basically pressing on the wings, trying some long balls to Son or Bergwjin. The latter gets a free kick thanks to his quick feet and speed, opposition GK totally misjudges the ball and Son scores.

Won't be goal of the week but we'll take it.

2nd half: Not much to report. Dele is playing well, creates a nice occasion with Kane, Dele misses the goal by a foot. Lucas for Bergwjin ( ). Bryan Gil for Son ( ). Kane misses an open net, tries a few things but nothing memorable. Watford is newly promoted I think and it shows. Apart from Sarr on the right side, they don't threaten Spurs at all. I think Lloris made one save.

Reguillon sucked, Skipp continues to be invisible. I would play Aurier and Winks, but then again you can't argue with 3 wins and being at the top of the league, so what do I know.

They traded my Sissoko to Watford a couple of days before the game 

Good feeling to head into the intl break on 3 wins and no goals conceded. COYS.

[celedhring]

I feel like this is the fourth time that Mbappé signs for Real Madrid.

[Sheilbh]

I feel like this is the fourth time that Mbappé signs for Real Madrid.

El Chiringuito is now a source for a lot of memes on English football twitter (ever since that Eden Hazard night ) - and this is outstanding:
https://twitter.com/ElChiringuitoEN/status/1432126072317952000?s=20

[The Larch]

Checking the background of one of the players that has moved in this transfer deadline has turned out a rather fascinating story.

There's this Brazilian guy called Junior Messias, that plays in Italy as an attacking midfielder. The guy used to play as a kid in Brazil for Cruzeiro, but seems to have never amounted to much, and in 2011 at 20 he moved to Italy to go live with his brother, who was already living in Turin, and started working there as a delivery boy for an appliances factory, and keeps playing in his spare time for sunday league teams.

At 24 he is spotted in one of these amateur tournaments and is signed by a local 5th division team. The next year he's signed by a Serie D team. The following year he's signed by another Serie D team, that gets promoted to Serie C. After one year in Serie C, at 28 he is signed by Crotone, at that point in Serie B, and they get promoted to Serie A. He plays for a year for them in Serie A and this summer, at 30, he has been signed by Milan, and will play in this season's Champions League.

So, in barely 6 years, this guy has gone from playing for basically pub teams in sunday leagues to the Champions League. Quite the career!

[FunkMonk]

One of my favorite Arsenal players, Hector Bellerin, went off on loan to Spain. I think the loan will run through the remainder of his contract so we've likely seen the end of his playing days for Arsenal. His last game for the club was the second league win over Chelsea last season.

So long Hector. 

[Josquius]

Checking the background of one of the players that has moved in this transfer deadline has turned out a rather fascinating story.

There's this Brazilian guy called Junior Messias, that plays in Italy as an attacking midfielder. The guy used to play as a kid in Brazil for Cruzeiro, but seems to have never amounted to much, and in 2011 at 20 he moved to Italy to go live with his brother, who was already living in Turin, and started working there as a delivery boy for an appliances factory, and keeps playing in his spare time for sunday league teams.

At 24 he is spotted in one of these amateur tournaments and is signed by a local 5th division team. The next year he's signed by a Serie D team. The following year he's signed by another Serie D team, that gets promoted to Serie C. After one year in Serie C, at 28 he is signed by Crotone, at that point in Serie B, and they get promoted to Serie A. He plays for a year for them in Serie A and this summer, at 30, he has been signed by Milan, and will play in this season's Champions League.

So, in barely 6 years, this guy has gone from playing for basically pub teams in sunday leagues to the Champions League. Quite the career!

Awesome. Never give up etc...
Big Jamie Vardy vibes.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - that's amazing.

[Syt]

Junior Messias

What a humble name!

[The Larch]

Junior Messias

What a humble name!

Well, it's his real name, not even a nickname as it's common with Brazilians. 

Awesome. Never give up etc...
Big Jamie Vardy vibes.

One has to think at which point he thought he could really make it. I don't think he expected to have a proper football career when he moved to Italy, and at first he was playing for lower leagues teams, so he might have thought that he could at least have a lower league career, but I don't know when he might have thought that he had what it took to play at the top level of the game as he'll be doing now, at 30. I don't know if he's a guy who fell through the cracks of football scouting when he was starting out or quite the late bloomer.

[Josquius]

It is a wonder; just what is the psychology of lower-league football players?
In terms of ability they are drastically closer to premier league quality than they are to the average sunday league player. Is it that a case that only once you reach a certain level you become aware of quite how much further you have to go? Or do they all think they just have to make that one tweak to remove the flaw in their playing.

[Josephus]

Checking the background of one of the players that has moved in this transfer deadline has turned out a rather fascinating story.

There's this Brazilian guy called Junior Messias, that plays in Italy as an attacking midfielder. The guy used to play as a kid in Brazil for Cruzeiro, but seems to have never amounted to much, and in 2011 at 20 he moved to Italy to go live with his brother, who was already living in Turin, and started working there as a delivery boy for an appliances factory, and keeps playing in his spare time for sunday league teams.

At 24 he is spotted in one of these amateur tournaments and is signed by a local 5th division team. The next year he's signed by a Serie D team. The following year he's signed by another Serie D team, that gets promoted to Serie C. After one year in Serie C, at 28 he is signed by Crotone, at that point in Serie B, and they get promoted to Serie A. He plays for a year for them in Serie A and this summer, at 30, he has been signed by Milan, and will play in this season's Champions League.

So, in barely 6 years, this guy has gone from playing for basically pub teams in sunday leagues to the Champions League. Quite the career!

There's still hope for me yet.

[The Larch]

It is a wonder; just what is the psychology of lower-league football players?
In terms of ability they are drastically closer to premier league quality than they are to the average sunday league player. Is it that a case that only once you reach a certain level you become aware of quite how much further you have to go? Or do they all think they just have to make that one tweak to remove the flaw in their playing.

I guess it depends on how you perform at each level. If you're playing at, say, the 5th division, and you have amazing performances day in, day out, maybe you think you can cut it one or two levels about it. If you go up in level and keep performing well then maybe you can make it one more level above that, until you kind of hit a wall and assume that you've reached your ceiling. In lower leagues it's not as if there's a massive abyss of playing level between them, but at some point the difference is big enough to be difficult to overcome for most players.

This particular guy, as an attacking midfielder, had the following numbers.

- At 5th division, 21 goals in 32 games. Obviously he was very good and could play in a better team.
- In his first 4th division team, 15 goals in 34 games. Again he was good, so he could play at a higher level.
- In his second 4th division team, 5 goals in 23 teams. Quite a performance drop, but we don't know what could have happened there, what is not shown in those numbers, and the team got promoted anyway, and the following year he played for them in 3rd division, in which he scored 5 goals in 35 games. He must have been doing things well, because he's then signed by Crotone (newly relegated from Serie A) for the 2nd division.
- In his first year in Crotone in Serie B he scored 6 goals in 36 matches, so he's doing roughly the same numbers he was doing in lower leagues, but in an even increasing level of competition. Crotone get promoted to Serie A, and in his debut at top level he scores 9 goals in 37 games, which as a midfielder is pretty good, and enough for Milan to come knocking.

So, seeing his numbers, I guess that at first he might have thought that he was too good for the 5th and 4th division teams, given how well he performed there at first, but maybe his career could have floundered in the 3rd division if he didn't have one of his lucky breaks, which he seems to have had a few.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting to see media grapple and work through how to report on Ronaldo given the sexual assault allegations. I think this wasn't an issue when he was playing overseas (except when the story broke) because he would come up in the context of CL or Serie A round up, while this time United are making a big deal of him re-signing, there are lots of fans and he will be part of the "domestic game" narrative.

It's also a really good example of something I think applies beyond sport that I think journalism should explain itself and why and how it reaches the decisions it does in how things are covered because I think that would actually increase trust but also just explain their thinking. So the Guardian podcast they did talk about this and how often they should mention these allegations - the conclusions was that they had a duty to mention them but that it would (I think this Jonathan Wilson's point) be defamatory to do it every time you report on Ronaldo even if it is reporting a fact (because repeating "Ronaldo, who has been accused of sexual assualt" in every article creates an impression that goes beyond what it's saying). Similarly with some of the United reporters for the Athletic who are torn between having to flag this and the Athletic has done a big piece on the allegations to almost temper the partisan, club reporter excitement. I don't know what's the right level of talking about the allegations - I think the Guardian podcast broadly struck the right note but it's not easy

Generally the UK has really strict reporting restrictions once someone's been arrested or charged in the interests of getting a fair trial - so I know the Icelandic press have revealed more about Sigurdsson, I don't know if there'll be similar coverage in France about Mendy. But I don't think that applies to Ronaldo. So with Sigurdsson and Mendy the media are very limited in what they can say until there's a trial, while with Ronaldo they're not (I think because it's overseas and it's a civil suit now).