Football (Soccer) Thread

[Josquius]

There has been talk of revisiting Bosman and giving players more rights.
As when you think about it logically transferring players is extremely fucked up and runs contrary to normal employment law.
Of course if this goes the whole way and gives players complete freedom there'd be a lot of unintended consequences. It would probably hurt smaller teams quite a lot.

[Josquius]

3 professionals vs 100 kids.

Made me laugh. Clearly a great challenge for the pros in not hurting the kids

[Sheilbh]

With Steve Clarke resigning as Scotland manager I see David Moyes is now the favourite.

I wouldn't hate it. But hope we have some succession plans in place (Oliver Glasner is right there) just in case because I think this might be a bit of a dream job for Moyes and he's 63 and the stars have aligned....

[celedhring]

There has been talk of revisiting Bosman and giving players more rights.
As when you think about it logically transferring players is extremely fucked up and runs contrary to normal employment law.
Of course if this goes the whole way and gives players complete freedom there'd be a lot of unintended consequences. It would probably hurt smaller teams quite a lot.

Technically, players in Spain can move clubs freely, courts found in the 1980s that indeed they have the same rights as any other worker.

So the transfer fee system we have was created as a workaround. The fees are actually penalty fees that the footballer agrees to pay if he leaves for another club (a competitor). Those were taken to court back in 1990s but were found legal if they were not "disproportionate" compared to the player's salary. I'm not sure whether they have ever been tested in Euro courts, I know Bayern threatened to do so when they signed somebody off Athletic to get the fee down. I think Newcastle also did some shenanigans to get a player from Mallorca while skirting the fee, many years ago.

[Zoupa]

Spurs have signed Sandro Tonali, Mateus Fernandes, Jan Paul van Hecke, Andy Robertson, Marcos Senesi and Martin Dubravka.

237 million pounds spent so far...

We need a top 6 finish with that kind of spend.

[Norgy]

And Nottingham Forest lets Vitor Pereira go in favour of... Glassner.

The managerial circus never ends at the City Ground.

[Sheilbh]

Spurs have signed Sandro Tonali, Mateus Fernandes, Jan Paul van Hecke, Andy Robertson, Marcos Senesi and Martin Dubravka.

237 million pounds spent so far...

We need a top 6 finish with that kind of spend.

Not related - but that is less than the Lewis family made in a recent auction of some of their art collection (they have commented that not at all related and they regularly buy and sell art)

Also I think under the new financial fair play rules it's more about the cost of your squad's wages to your revenue - and Spurs have the lowest ratio in the league so there may be more to come.

And Nottingham Forest lets Vitor Pereira go in favour of... Glassner.

The managerial circus never ends at the City Ground.

I can only assume they're throwing money at Glassner. Because otherwise, leaving Palace (after having a couple of public rows with the ownership/leadership) to go to Forest seems a....strange career move.

Shame though as Glassner would be my favourite to succeed Moyes. On the other hand I suppose he'll be free in the next 2-8 weeks anyway

[Norgy]

He'll be free in September. It's not officially announced yet. Anderson's transfer to Man City is, though.

The problem for anyone taking over Nottingham Forest is that this person will have to be able to work with both a director football (formerly Edu) and an owner whose humours are not well-adjusted. He may have too much bile.

Forest were among the clubs fined petty cash for breach of some financial fair play rules by the UEFA. I doubt the club cares about 2.5 million Euros.

I am impressed by Tottenham's signings. An article in The Athletic puts it down to De Zerbi's pull on players. "Everyone" wants to be coached by him.

[Josquius]

Big Sunderland news at the moment is apparently Chelsea bidding an insulting 8 million for xhaka and he wants to go.
That's absolute pocket change.
With financial rules what they are would effectively be Sunderland paying Chelsea.
Hopefully it's just baseless gossip but.... Who knows.

[HVC]

Rumours have it that Bento is back in the running to lead the Korean Football team. I love Korea 

[Duque de Bragança]

Rumours have it that Bento is back in the running to lead the Korean Football team. I love Korea 

They must be desperate or Mendes is Bento's agent.

[Jacob]

Took my by and a couple of his friends to a Vancouver Whitecaps game. They were playing Calgary Cavalry. It was the first leg in the Canada Cup, which is a proper knock-out stages cup.

It's the first live game I've been to in quite a while. I've seen a few FC Copenhagen games in the 2000s, but prior to that it was mostly Danish 1st and especially 2nd division games in the 80s and 90s. So with that in mind, here's my verdict:

Since their normal venue is used by the World Cup, they were playing at their old grounds - Swangard Stadium. It was at capacity, with a little over 5,000 attendants. Personally I really enjoyed the stadium, though it's of course nothing like the 10s of thousands at international events or in top leagues.

The game itself was pretty good. The first minute saw heavy pressure from Vancouver, resulting in an own goal by Calgary. Funny thing is my boy had asked me something so I'd been looking it up on my phone before kick-off... so I missed it completely. And unlike the world cup on the big screen, there's no instant replay.

Vancouver dominated most of the first half, but Calgary equalized in the 44th minute (or so) with a quick counter attack.

In the second half, Vancouver put Muller in and saw two goals in fairly quick succession. One by Muller and one by Ryan Gauld. Then they took Muller out again, but Vancouver scoured a 4th goal for the final result 4-1.

The vibe was pretty good. The hard core fan section did a pretty good job drumming and singing for pretty much the whole game, and the rest of the fans were pretty game too. Still, it's hard to really get the cauldron atmosphere with that number of fans (and plenty people just looking). There was a little bit of pyro as well, but not a crazy amount.

When Vancouver scored, the announcer and fans did a little thing I thought was pretty fun (maybe it's common, I don't know). The announcer went "Goal was scored by number 13, Thomas..." and the crowd yelled "Muller". We did the "first name" "last name" call and response three times, at which point the announcer went "thank you" and the crowd yelled "you're welcome!"

One thing I despised was the generic stadium energy music they chose to play prior to kick off and after each goal. IMO it's inane.

It was pretty good and the boys had fun. I could see us making it a regular thing... unless, of course, the Caps relocate because that's how sports are run on this continent

[HVC]

When Vancouver scored, the announcer and fans did a little thing I thought was pretty fun (maybe it's common, I don't know). The announcer went "Goal was scored by number 13, Thomas..." and the crowd yelled "Muller". We did the "first name" "last name" call and response three times, at which point the announcer went "thank you" and the crowd yelled "you're welcome!"

So Canadian

[Threviel]

Someone had a poll on Swedish support for the Norwegians. Apparently 78% of Swedes are happy or very happy and support Norway. 11% hold a sane normal view and hope they lose.

[crazy canuck]

Someone had a poll on Swedish support for the Norwegians. Apparently 78% of Swedes are happy or very happy and support Norway. 11% hold a sane normal view and hope they lose.

Ro!