Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [ARCHIVED] Soccer • Page 377

top five moment of that World Cup

 

Luiz and Mustafi starting together. This I gotta see.

 

Heidenheim are 2-0 down but so are HSV!

 

Yeah this is crazy! Both games starting with an own goal. Any access to a stream? I've been looking but coming up short.

 

No stream here. Just following online intensely.

 

It would be utterly hilarious if Heidenheim lost but Hamburg managed to lose as well.

 

Was the least likely scenario in my mind but here we are lol now Heidenheim will have a big task against Bremen but obviously anything can happen.

 

Going to be concerning if Leicester keep this form up for the rest of the season. That sort of slump can be terminal for a manager. They were bad before the break too I think?

 

Hahahahah jeeeesus. What a score on the last day at home.

 

Holy shit Diekmeier scores as well. You genuinely couldn’t write that.

 

Damn, straight to second in the fantasy league for me. Can't grumble at Southampton winning, though.

 

I'm clinging on just behind in third. Nice gap to fourth though, which hopefully I won't fuck up.

 

I haven’t checked my team since before the Rona.

 

Good win today but maaaaaan that referee sucked. He got almost every big decision wrong. The only one he got right was our penalty which he gave. Even their two clearly offside goals were only ruled out because of VAR.

They deserved to score, but the fact it came from a TERRIBLE refereeing decision at the other end is annoying. How a foul was given against Nketiah, when literally nothing happened, is beyond me. Our defending was bad for their goal, which is pretty standard for us when it comes to set pieces.

The goal at the end was hilarious though. We won, which is all that matters but I think any team left in it will absolutely smash us in the semi final.

 

Dwight Gayle with miss of the season, right?

 

City in the semis.

Fun times.

 

Been stealing a living ever since we got promoted. Just out of his depth in the Prem.

 

An Inter squad managed by Conte and featuring Lukaku, Sanchez, Moses, Young, and Eriksen. Still sounds weird to me.

 

Spurs keep getting linked to Hojbjerg and I'm really not excited about it. A true DM is probably our biggest need right now but I don't know if he's the right guy. There are a handful of other names I'd rather us sign.

 

Angel Gomes may leave Manchester United on a free tomorrow if they don't agree a new contract today?! Does he want too much £££ or something?

 

Such a weird case. It's been obvious for a while that he'll need to go a different route in his development as opposed to someone like Greenwood. Greenwood, despite being skinny, is still a decent size and stands more chance of winning duels against grown men. Gomes is much smaller and so is going to have to wait a couple of years till he's ready. But once he's ready, he stands a good chance of being fantastic. The club must surely know that, but is it that he wants first team action sooner than they're willing to give him it? Or that he's seeing peers his own age sign mega contracts and he fancies a bit of it...

 

On one hand, he's sort of right, but on the other, you can't buy everyone's best players due to your MASSIVE comparative
wealth and then tell them to try harder.

It's a shame what happened this year, the Bundesliga could have won a lot of new fans, but instead they saw the same boring thing that happens every year, pretty much a procession to a title by Bayern. Would have been the ideal time for something actually exciting to happen in the title race.

 

I tend to agree with this argument to an extent, but obviously it does not paint the whole picture. You cannot pin the success, or lack thereof, of an entire club on the monetary advantage another club has over the other clubs in the same league.

Bayern's acquisitions alone do not impact the success of other clubs. So the argument should not be reduced to that. It is not year-in and year-out that Bayern shells out huge sums of cash to acquire Bundesliga talent. Besides, it goes without saying that some of their most notable acquisitions have been at the expiration of a player's contract with their previous clubs.

Additionally, various unaccounted factors also may play a role in the inability of clubs to compete against Bayern that prevents the issue from being severely reduced to "Bayern buying everyone's best players".

Looking at the past 10 years or so, the arrivals of (mostly notable) players from other Bundesliga teams are here:

19/20: Pavard/38.5 million/Stuttgart; Cuisance/13.2 million/Gladbach

18/19: Goretzka/Free transfer/Shalke; Gnabry/End of loan to Hoffenheim

17/18: Sule/22 million/Hoffenheim; Gnabry/8.8 Million/Bremen; Rudy/Free Transfer/Hoffenheim

16/17: Hummels/38.5 million/Dortmund

15/16: Kimmich/9.35 million/Stuttgart

14/15: Lewandowski/Free Transfer/Dortmund; Rode/Free Transfer/Frankfurt

13/14: Gotze/40.7 million/Dortmund; Krichhoff/Free Transfer/Mainz

12/13: Mandzukic/14.3 million/Wolfsburg; Dante/5.17 Million/Gladbach; Pizarro/Free Transfer/Bremen

11/12: Bayern finished second this year, but arguments could be made that acquisitions during this year helped in the years to follow:
Neuer/33 Million/Shalke

10/11: Bayern finished 3rd this year.
Gustavo/18.7 million/Hoffenheim

I could go on, but I think it is too easy, and too inaccurate, to reduce the issues specific of the Bundesliga to Bayern "poaching" players from other BuLi clubs. What is to be done? Idk maybe find and explain other reasons, but the above one isn't defensible enough on its own.

Is it a shame? Yes, it is, but it is also a shame that Dortmund aren't as consistent as they should be since they have the talent to not lose or draw as often as they do, yet here we are.

 

I think I've got it. Please don't think of the problems this suggestion could create but instead think of the problem it could solve ;) If a team wins the league 5 years in a row, they are banned from doing the following for the next three seasons:

1) Purchasing any player from any club's top two a) goalscorers, b) assist leaders or c) combined goals+assist leaders.
2) Purchasing any players with the 2 highest pass accuracies of their club.
3) Purchasing any team's number 1 keeper from the top 7 clubs.
4) Purchasing any players that would be 1st or 2nd choice for any defensive position.

I guess as a drastic protective measure, if the club falls apart competitively they are also given a free pass to not get relegated the next 5 seasons regardless of the position they finish.

Boom. The problem of buying talent from domestic league competition solved without adding any further complications to the outcome of the league overall competition ;) /s

What do you say @orangehorizon ?

 

Would be much better for football as a whole if there were limits on how much a team could spend in the transfer market. To link it together with your ideas, perhaps the total spend is based on league position the previous season - promoted teams could have no limit, but league winners would have a limit of say 50million; the more times that team wins the league the total is reduced by £10million. So if a team like Bayern, PSG or Juventus win the league 5x in a row, they could either A) not be allowed to spend any money to strengthen for the next season or B) maybe could only spend what they make from player sales or something.

The sooner teams like PSG are blocked from spending 200million on one player the better. I can't think of anything regarding free transfers and players running down their contracts to join the top teams though!