Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [Archived] Soccer • Page 288

I miss those Houston/SKC playoff battles so much. One of the best rivalries in the league over that stretch.

 

Orlando City goes down to Ft Lauderdale.

 

a win feels good.

 

Kings of Florida

 

How long can this go on for?
Mediawatch got very angry at the Daily Mail yesterday, but we were actually pleasantly surprised by the lack of Raheem Sterling-bashing. In the Independent, Ian Herbert wrote a piece asking why the Manchester City winger was being ‘eviscerated’. Well, quite.

Fast forward 24 hours, and the anger is rising again. ‘Obscene Raheem,’ shouts the headline on the front page (yes, that’s front page) of The Sun. For fuc… Sorry, but this one’s a biggie.

Firstly, a small piece of administration, for Moriarty’s story is labelled as an ‘exclusive’. Given that the video was posted by a friend of Sterling (a friend, not Sterling himself) on Snapchat, how can it possibly be an exclusive story? The clue’s in the first word of the phrase ‘social media’, guys.

This is the latest in a campaign to victimise a young, English footballer who has – and we can’t repeat these next few words often or loudly enough – done nothing wrong. So a 21-year-old is struggling to cope with pressure on the international stage? Let’s try and turn him into a national hate figure and see if that helps.

Also, let’s not pretend that The Sun don’t know exactly what they are doing here; it is a trick that they have repeated often enough in the last fortnight over far more serious issues than Raheem Sterling’s bathroom. Whip up your readership into a storm by planting deliberately inflammatory rhetoric into their consciousness, before walking away with hands raised and shoulders shrugged when said readership then takes this rhetoric to heart. They are willfully taking the pin out of the grenade and throwing it into the room, playing on the anger and jealousy that always follows a major tournament exit.

Gravel? The drive is ‘gravelled’? Well now we’ve changed our minds. Hanging is too good for him.

Mediawatch could pick apart each and every line, but would like to focus on just one:

Yes, that’s right. The Sun waited until paragraph 39 to tell their readers that the house pictured in the video might not even be owned by Sterling. Suddenly the second ‘a’ in the opening ‘‘The £49 million Manchester City winger laughed as he took pals on a Through The Keyhole-style tour of a luxury mansion’ line makes sense. Suddenly Mediawatch wants to scream all of the swearwords.

Where does this end? When does news reporting in the public interest become a deliberate attempt to demonise the personality and jeopardise the career of a 21-year-old player? When does the desire for clicks and sales outgrow that public interest (fuck it, that one’s already gone). When does the biggest-selling national newspaper get called out for its own role in the “culture of fear” to which Steven Gerrard referred on Wednesday? And when does Sterling turn around and say, actually, I don’t want to play for England any more, and presumably be labelled a coward for doing so?

The Sun have every right to publish stories like these. They have every right to put them on their front page. But having done so, they forgo their right to ask why England players are struggling to swim in the goldfish bowl. Sometimes, the answer is closer to (videoed) home than you think.

 

Arsenal linked with both Gabriel Barbosa and Lacazette. Yes please. Please?

 

Vertonghen suffered a "serious" ankle injury and may have ligament damage. Could miss 4 months.

Hope Wales knocks off Belgium. No more injuries please.

 

Just realized that if Iceland somehow with the luck of the gods make it past France, they face the winner of Germany-Italy in the semis. Jesus Christ

 

France hasn't been extremely impressive so far, I wouldn't consider it shocking if Iceland managed to win. Beating Germany or Italy would take an act of god though.

 

Zlatchester United

 

I just can't really believe we've signed Zlatan

 

The worst kept secret in football is out of the bag.

 

Worst kept secret since Mourinho. Pogba next?

 

What would Chelsea's XI look like in a 3-5-2? I know they're going to add some players this window but they seem far off from being able to put out a team that makes sense for that formation.

 

Chelsea running a 3-5-2 could potentially get Miazga on the pitch faster.

 

Manchester United Away shirts & kits 2016/17 | Manchester United Official Online Megastore

Mkhitaryan kits already on sale. Eejits.

 

Ah, that didnt embed.

 

Sure remember that one time we announced Aaron Ramsey on our official site?

 

I had a dream that Portugal won 2-1.

Let's hope that's wrong.

 

Obi Mikel held the shirt up and everything

 

Get in there.

 

Well that didn't take long

 

Wonderful start