Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [ARCHIVED] Soccer • Page 1842

They won’t do shit.

 

Thought this was fake but then saw a video of him saying it.

 

Yikes

 

Apologies if anyone has since noted this, but this is the last season in England that clubs can have betting jersey sponsors. So that's a small progress I guess.

 

Strip the title and give it to the team who finished second, I say.

 

This Barcelona line-up sure is something.

 

@Swoos not watching, but it seems Kessie is finally having a stormer for Barcelona based on some stuff I've seen

 

This has not felt like a Classico

 

I’m also not watching but glad he’s doing well. Spurs have tried to sign him the last 2 windows and I’ve already seen that we’re going to try again this summer haha but if he keeps playing like that I’m sure we won’t get him.

 

I don’t think any Classico has really felt the same for about two/three years. Both teams are good, but are they still the two best teams? Absolutely not. Something is missing I think.

 

Ronaldo leaving Madrid took a big bit of the fanfare away, too, I think.

 

This seems to be a common opinion among English football fans. They tend to rather have their team get far in the league than have a go at a trophy. I regularly see English teams getting into Europe and then only fielding a B-team because "the league is more important". I really don't get it. You give everything to get into a European competition in the first place only to scrap it the next year because you have to concentrate on the league because you have to get into Europe again. It makes no sense at all.
And I absolutely understand that it's very difficult to play in multiple competitions. German teams have the same problem but they usually prioritize the competition where you actually have a shot at winning something. Just look at Frankfurt last season. They only finished 11th in the league but they fucking won a European trophy. That was by far the best season that a large part of their fans ever whitnessed. They will tell their grandchildren about it. Who cares about a 4th place in the league???

 

I agree with all of that, but this wasn’t a European competition. I’d definitely want to prioritize CL or Europa because I think it’s a major accomplishment. But the domestic cups are consistently matches where clubs rotate players. The clubs tell us every year that the domestic cups are lower priority. Once the competitions reach the semi-finals and finals you see stronger squad selections.

But even with all that said, we faced a team in a division below us who also rotated their lineup. In fact, much more of a rotation than Spurs. We still had players out there who are absolutely expected to win that match. Conte and Stellini did not field a team that indicated a white flag for the competition. They expected that team to win. Sheffield United expected us to win and selected their lineup accordingly.

So, yes, we sat our best player to rest him for the top 4 race. But we didn’t field a team that was too weak for that game. We prioritized the league but still put the club in a position to advance. And the players failed.

 

I get wanting to win every trophy possible. But you can’t field your strongest squad in every competition. And if I had to pick the competitions that I’d want my strongest squad, the league season and CL would be the easy picks. And that’s basically what every team does going into the season. I feel like reaching a domestic cup final something to obviously be proud of but I just fail to see how any team prioritizes it throughout the season. They typically don’t until it’s the semis or finals.

 

I think it depends on the club. For Man City, Chelsea, or Liverpool, it makes total sense to prioritise the league most seasons.

For Arsenal, we have no issues with winning domestic cups, so getting CL for the first time in 5 years would be more important. Personally, I’ll almost always take winning something. But this season I would have taken CL.

Imo Spurs should try to win something and get that monkey off their back, it could revitalise the feeling at the club to actually be successful.

 

For me, it would be Saka, Ødegaard, Haaland, Rashford, KDB, and then one of Trippier, Gabriel, Martinez, Mitoma and Casemiro.

 

I was thinking about what the team of the year would look like and came up with

Pope
Trippier - Gabriel - Martinez - Shaw
Casemiro - KDB
Saka - Odegaard - Rashford
Haaland

 

Fucking hell a really good enjoyable season is going to end with Greenwood back in the squad and the club being owned by Qatar, isn’t it? Fucking depressing.

 

I think you could make, with their defensive record, a case for the entire Newcastle back five to be in the running. But yeah, definitely those you mentioned too. And Saliba.

 

I don't want to bombard team of the season chat with Arsenal players, because I'm obviously biased, but Zinchenko has also been phenomenal and should be in with a shout

 

What a waste. I mean, what the fuck goes through their heads? I can't fathom it.

 

My TOTY would be all United players, not necessarily because I’m biased, I am of course, but because I don’t think I’ve watched and paid the necessary attention to a single full Premier League game this season that didn’t involve United.