Men's Soccer (Football) Thread Soccer • Page 20

Will Still v Wrexham is a fun way to start the season

 

Dibling not in the squad

 

30 min and Wrexham look very comfortable. Could have 3 by now.

 

I'd love Still to be a success, cause then the dream is on for any of us, but Wrexham have outplayed them when it matters.

 

I have to be honest, I'd love Wrexham (and Birmingham City despite being my local "big" club) to fail. But they're absolutely not going to.

 

Barry starting the last pre-season friendly instead of Beto.

 

Last minute Southampton equaliser. You love to see it.

 

LIMBS!

 

Thing you love to see: it

 

Sky Sports in shambles

 

This site probably has around that in active/regular members, right?

 

Two goals inside a handful of minutes against Athletic. Lovely header from Gyokeres, and then he combined well with Ødegaard and Martinelli to set up Saka.

More of this please.

 

Kai just scored the least Kai goal of all time. On a break, muscling off two defenders, running 30 yards, strong finish.

We look considerably better today.

 

I hate this take. It’s not like they’re billionaires taking over. They’ve done a great job rebuilding that club and they’ve been very mindful of the culture and history behind the club. It’s like exactly what any club would want from their owners. They should be praised for it imo.

 

“Purest”

 

They are multi, multi millionaires though and the investment that Wrexham have received is incredibly substantial vs other teams in the leagues they've faced on the way up to the championship.

I think the framing of their rise as a "fairytale" leaves a bad taste in the mouth when you see so many other teams struggle financially to even keep afloat. Morecambe in the National League going under recently, and the death of Bury for example.

Totally agree on how they've helped the local community in Wrexham and build the culture though. I think it's going to be really interesting to see how they get on this year where they don't have the financial advantage they had before.

Fwiw, I think that Americanisation phrase is incredibly dumb considering we essentially created the PL in the image of American sports in 1992?

 

Don't know enough about Birmingham's rise to comment on them (outside of Brady's involvement) though!

 

But I don’t get why it’s a bad thing that the club got investment. I don’t really hear a lot of people calling it a fairytale. But it is a good/cool story. And I get why people hate on it being a doc series, but it does give you a more inside look of how the club is growing which is interesting to a lot of people.

 

Birmingham spent £10m on a striker in League One last season. I think that's all you need to know about their investment.

 

It's definitely British media projecting it as a fairytale and something that's heard over and over again whenever they're on Sky/TNT or whatever. Their rise was definitely framed that way in their game against Southampton.

I think the doc is actually pretty good, (not Sunderland Til I Die good, but that's just because I love the total chaos on that show lol). I also think it's refreshing to see owners that actually care for the club and want to invest their own money, where so many across the leagues (not just England) are letting their clubs and communities down by failing/refusing to do so.

I just feel their success is a little inauthentic in the same way I think Chelsea/City's success has been due to their financial advantages, although i'm definitely not comparing the Robs to Russian oligarchs and oil states lol.

 

Birmingham spent more during their year in League One than the rest of the league combined, so that was a bit fucked.

Rob & Ryan have obviously been really good owners for Wrexham, and have really gotten into the local and sporting culture, which is great. But they’ve basically turned them into a vehicle for a documentary. And I wonder what happens when that fails. Do they get bored?

I also think these owners are just a bit cringe at times, like that video of Rob, Tom Brady, and Snoop. That probably hurts the perception of them in the wider football world. But just ask Morecambe and Sheff Wednesday if they’d take some cringe but decent owners.

 

I guess it’s just a bit weird to me to see the “they’re buying it” talk when the cumulative amount of money Rob and Ryan have spent in four years is probably less than Liverpool, United, Arsenal, Chelsea, and City have each spent on one player this window.

 

Bit of a disingenuous argument though, there's clearly levels to it. Wrexham were paying League One wages to players when they were in the National League. Obviously they weren't competing with Premier League levels of investment, but when you're paying 10s of thousands per week and your competitors are essentially going bust, it's fair to say the money played a part.