Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [ARCHIVED] Soccer • Page 849

So I probably started watching via a World Cup when I was younger but don't have a very distinct memory of which one. I was a late adopter to loving the game as I was more into American football and basketball as a kid. I think the 2006 World Cup is the first one of those that I can remember pieces of me watching and the USA losing to Italy. 2008 is when I really started watching the Premier League, using a Grantland article I picked City as a team to follow in the Premier League, liked the colors and didn't want to bandwagon a team (ironic how that worked out). Elano, Robinho, Wright-Phillips, Ireland, and Dunne what a crazy ass team that was.

I do remember the Brandi Chastain thing, I am pretty sure I watched that game.

 

I only remember it because that Beckham injury was, IIRC, the first of the metatarsal injuries that seemed to be a consistent bugbear with England players for years. I think Rooney got one, maybe Owen too?

Yeah I think I may have watched that 5-1 a few times for exactly the same reason. The match I've watched the most times is almost certainly Liverpool's 2001 UEFA Cup final win against Alaves. 4-3 on a golden goal in extra time. Had that on VHS and watched it constantly as a kid - one of those games where I can recall lines of commentary with exact intonation.

 

I also have vague memories of watching Ronaldo for Brazil in the late 90s and he was the first player that at least caught my attention

 

I can remember watching a match in 1996, I was 7 at the time. It was a European final between PSG and Rapid Wien. I can distinctly remember being fascinated by Bernard Llama's dreads.

International football wise, I can vividly remember Paul Scholes scoring a hat-trick for England v Poland in a qualifier.

I can remember several Match of the Day's from 1997 onwards. That's when the sport really began to click with me. For example, I can remember Spurs being managed by Christian Gross and Wimbledon being called "The crazy gang".

The 1998 World Cup was huge for me. I can remember being distraught that OG Ronaldo was injured for the final.

 

I have vague memories of going into Portman Road at HT with my dad to meet my brother, that would have been maybe 1990 or around then, there were still standing only and massive metal fences between the pitch/stand. So maybe earlier.

First game I remember clearly was Ipswich v Arsenal at Portman Road. Ian Wright hat-trick. I thought it was 95, but turns out it was 94. Ipswich v Arsenal, 1993/94 | Premier League

I'm old.

 

98 world cup final for me, my friend set up a tv in his backyard and we'd jump in his pool every time a goal was scored.

 

I'm so jealous of you all remembering '98. Gutted I missed out on such an iconic era by a couple of years

 

I barely remember shit I have to do during my day, but I remember the fond soccer related memories.

 

The UEFA Cup was a straight two legged knock out competition though. None of this group stage business!

 

Someone made a flippant post on Twitter or something about getting rid of all three European cups and just doing one big FA cup style European cup and I was just thinking how great it would be. Not an every year thing but like one tournament and all teams from the top league in each country in Europe. Straight knock out. Would be bonkers.

 

I would 100% back this and make it my business to watch every match of it that I physically could, give me those wild match ups

 

My first footballing memory was Forest in the UEFA Cup. I remember us beating Lyon and then getting knocked out by Bayern Munich. That year (think it was 1995) we were actually the last English team left in Europe as there was no one left in the Champions League. Crazy to think we came third in the PL (I know it’s over 20 years ago now but it was still in my lifetime...)

I remember watching those games vaguely on tv but I was young and may even have been in bed at half time.

First proper proper memories like others was the World Cup 1998. That Owen goal but then the heartache... addicted to the rollercoaster of supporting England ever since!

 

I’m all for this

 

Imagine the drama for the draws before every round. Would be absolutely crazy haha

 

Would probably need to limit it to like 8-10 countries though right?

 

First game was EFC Stahl - Werder Bremen 1991 Supercup semi-final. We were visiting some relatives in Bavaria, which was my first time in West Germany. I didn't really care for football back then. One evening this game was on so we all watched. I was pretty surprised that my home team was shown on TV. After that I started going to home games from time to time, but still didn't care too much. I think the Euro 92 was what really got me into football.

 

I did a quick check so this could be wrong. There are 685 teams in the top level leagues across the 55 member states. 686 if you add in the winner of the Liechtenstein cup (they don’t have a football league system. You would have to do some form of seeding to make it in any way feasible. But for chaos I wouldn’t want any seeding.


For comparison the FA Cup has over 700 clubs competing in it every year.

 

Scenes as Tre Penne from San Marino knock out Celtic from the cup

 

Mannn just when I thought I had escaped from FM for good a couple years ago. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent in editor creating custom cups and leagues. A European FA Cup would be epic.

 

“Real Madrid have drawn FC Luch Vladivostok.”

Trying to think of the most chaotic random draw and I think this would be it.

 

No seeding lol

 

Yeah my earliest footballing memories are:

Beckham getting sent off against Argentina at World Cup 98 and then us losing on penalties

Chelsea winning the Cup Winners Cup

My first memory is my dad taking me to see Arsenal play Leicester when I was like 4/5 and seeing Dennis Bergkamp absolutely destroy them.


Going to use that Footballia to watch old Arsenal games now...

 

Absolutely this. Seeding is no fun at all. I want to see Real Madrid travel away to Cierny Balog in Slovakia on a wet November midweek evening and have to deal with this:

Only to be rewarded with getting stomped 5-0 by Man City. It's the chaos factor.

 

I got hooked immediately during Euro 04 when the first game I ever saw was when I was just channel surfing one day as a bored 9 year old home for the summer. Stumbled onto the Sweden-Italy game and the first goal I ever saw was the late Ibra acrobatic equalizer. Easy to see why I was hooked in retrospect.

What followed was a rough two year period from Euro 04 to WC 06 where I was just a child trying to do my best to familiarize myself the game and follow the game with minimal resources available. Fox Soccer Channel coming around in 05 was a god send for me. I spent the entire summer of 06 in a football wormhole where I watched probably 80% of the games that WC and spent the rest of my time watching Fox Soccer Reports new and old as well as every single archived game they showed.

I remember going into the 06/07 season having fallen in love with United over the summer, that was my first year full on following it. I remember my hate for Chelsea was almost as strong as my love for United going into things. I spent that whole summer watching footage of Chelsea beating United at Stamford Bridge to win the title again at the end of 05/06 just convincing myself more and more that Chelsea were the bad guys.