Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [Archived] Soccer

Yesterday night, I had Bayern - Juve on the telly, Arsenal - Barcelona on my laptop, and followed the live updates of Preston - Charlton on my phone. Felt like I was plugged into the Matrix.

 

Tottenham's gonna win the league.

Edit: Fuck.

 

After the way they played against West Ham, no way. Pochettino has run his small squad into the ground, they're absolutely spent physically. With the Europa League still to come, with two difficult games against Dortmund, I don't think they'll have enough in the tank to close down on Leicester.

 

Yeah Kane was pretty awful, definitely shows their struggles without a second striker. I'm banking on a Leicester choke-job though, hopefully. Dortmund's got me worried too but if they can't beat them then they've got no business winning Europa anyway.

 

New football thread, excited. I promise to be nicer from the start.

 

Haha Mata. The two dumbest yellow cards in a 3 minute window.

 

Terrible stuff from Juan. Thought the second one was harsh until I saw the replay. Eejit.

 

everton.........

oh....

everton.......

 

So this is my new place to talk about Barcelona while nobody else cares? Excellent.

 

Preston away at Notts Forest tonight, following a dud 0-0 with Brighton on Sat. We're still in for a (just about) outside chance of play-offs, if everyone else blows it. But a mid-table comfortable position in the Championship is pretty good going considering we only got promoted last season.

I went to watch them play at Cardiff two weeks ago, lost 2-1 with two penalties from Cardiff and they were just pure shite, one of the worst performances of the season.

 

First time following the EPL in depth this year. I was sort of raised into the Arsenal culture years ago, but I am actually watching games, making an effort to get to know more players, and playing the EA fantasy stuff. It's been a fun season. Love to see what Leicester is doing. Happy for that club and their fans.

 

sub a dubb dubb

 

I would love to see Leicester win the league, it would be such a fairy tale story.

 

I want Leicester to win the league, just because I think watching them in the Champions League next year could be insane if they can keep up the squad/performances. I think the new TV money will help keep the squad, but I also wouldn't be surprised to see quite a few Big Teams go hard for Mahrez asap.

 

I feel like Vardy is very likely to go if he does somewhat ok playing for England. Mahrez should be sold too imo. Losing them would not make fans happy but they should think about the bigger picture of the club. Selling those guys high would give them a lot more flexibility. I am not an EPL expert, so I could be way off.

 

If the new tv money didn't kick in next year, that argument would make much more sense. But even the bottom three clubs next year are going to be operating with budgets larger than almost every team in Serie A/La Liga/Bundesliga. If I recall correctly, the only teams with larger budgets than the top twenty of England will be Real Madrid, Bayern, and Barcelona.

 

Yeah with the money coming in, Leicester don't need to sell. But I doubt the owners would turn down the kinda money to be thrown at them this summer. I mean they signed Mahrez for €300k!

 

Interesting. Is there a good article to read more about this deal and it's impending fallout?

 

I'm sure there are more, but this is one that kinda highlights briefly how it'll change the soccer landscape of Europe and has a few numbers: Massive new English Premier League TV deal has the rest of European soccer worried

 

That type of deal is mind-boggling, isn't it? I can't imagine the kind of sums we'll see thrown at him this summer. My guess is he may end up at Atletico, for some reason. Or, God forbid, in Chelsea's vast midfielder pool.

 

This is a good start. Thank you very much. I definitely like drilling into the numbers/business side of sports and quite honestly, soccer has been a bit overwhelming for me to try and catch up.

 

Can we fast forward a year so I can finally watch ATL Utd?

 

Awww man I thought today was Tuesday and Preston were playing. Turns out it's only Monday. What a travesty.

 

Just realized this is the first week when Barca doesn't have a midweek game in (I think) four months. And every player will have worked off their yellow card accumulation bans (Neymar and Mascherano) by the time the game on Saturday is over. Enrique is ridiculously good at squad balance, rotation, rest, and strategic bans. Getting Neymar banned for the Eibar game? Getting Mascherano out for Getafe?