Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [ARCHIVED] Soccer • Page 445

That's why I am glad that here in Germany we still have mostly member-run clubs. But it will probably not last any longer if we are looking into the next 10 years. At some point clubs will have to decide if they want to stay competitive in Europe, and thus give up our model, or become the next Eredivisie. If you'd ask me I would be absolutely ok with the latter but I bet most people would prefer a different route.

 

Freudian slip lol

i do wonder if it might help to make the league more competitive at the sharp end, feels like the status quo suits Bayern?

i actually thought about getting more into the Bundesliga after that post but the team I chose years ago are now apparently one of the clubs being financially helped (Hertha).

 

How would you do it? I am all for more competitiveness but not artificially. If that makes any sense.

 

I don’t think the Bundesliga or Serie A will ever recover from this Bayern/Juventus streak. It’s already turned into another PSG situation.

 

I mean both leagues were actually not that far away to have a new champion this year. If Dortmund beats Bayern they are 1 point behind and we have an exciting title race until the last day. But since they lost they gave up and in the end the gap looks bigger than it actually was.

 

And keep in mind that Bayern was 7th just right before Christmas. This year could have been one of the most exciting Buli titles ever but for several reasons it was not.

 

not sure honestly. I think what is needed is a way to stop Bayern just poaching other BuLi clubs best players. But how you implement that is hard to be honest.

 

To be fair to Bayern, them buying people like Neuer/Gotze/Lewandowski is no different to, say, United for buying Rio/Berbatov/RVP or Chelsea buying Ashley Cole or Ngolo Kante or something. If a team is the no.1 in the country they will always look at preserving their status, and improving the squad at the expense of a rival is a no-brainer.

Bayern and United have a certain prestige where almost all players would love to go to them even if they play for a rival too, so there is little to nothing that can be done to level the playing field in that regard.

 

I think it may already be too late for high-level football anyway, the whole thing is an absolute mess. There's too much that needs to be changed that realistically is never going to, to the point where the whole European Super League thing is an inevitability that will be dressed up as "saving the integrity" of those 1-club leagues or something.

 

Are big clubs too big?

Good article on this topic that The Athletic just released

 

I will again recommend that site to everyone here. Great soccer coverage and podcasts.

 

I wish

selfishly I wish we could still do this lol. It’s better for the league that there are more big teams, I just wish the only real option to become a perennial big team wasn’t being owned by an oil rich country.

 

Our DoF is getting it in the neck for his targets leaking e.g. Hojbjerg and Gabriel. I smell foul play by agents myself.

 

Ronaldo to PSG is being mooted.

That would be... Interesting.

Ronaldo, Mbappe, Neymar up top.

 

Wonder if they’re looking into him because Mbappe is moving to Madrid.

Not gonna pretend that Barcelona has the money to bring Neymar back right now.

 

Whoopsies

 

It would be poetic justice if one of the players is Diego Costa. He walked through the Anfield mixed zone pretending to have a cough you see.

 

Please, no Ronaldo at PSG

 

This is one of the weirdest things ever.

1) Is this the weirdest “come and get me” from a player ever?

2) why is he in a nightclub during a global pandemic?

 

New deal for PEA
Singing Willian
Signing Coutinho

That seems like such risky strategy

 

Guess it depends where in the world he is as to whether being in a nightclub is safe or not.

 

I finally started reading “The Mixer” by Michael Cox.

The first chapter is mind-boggling to me. It discusses the no back pass rule change in 1992. How in the world did it take so long to change that rule? I can’t imagine watching a game with that kind of time wasting.

 

What do we reckon about Sancho then? Today was Dortmund's deadline and it seems he's reported to the squad as expected.

There's a lot of bluffing and media games going on I think, but I'd still hope it would get done in the end.

 

More like SancNO, amirite?

 

I thought this would be the summer where transfer fees kept a lot of people in place one more year. Sancho being a prime example.