Interesting story in the New York Times this morning about a young American boy who is training at La Masia in Barcelona. It will be interesting to see if he makes it.
If my memory serves me right I don't think he's the only American kid they have. Madrid has signed an American kid in Joshua Pynadath (also 11 and also wanted by Barca) over the summer. Barca has tons of boys from all over the world. I thought FIFA were supposed to be investigating this matter when they banned the likes of Bobby Adekanye (poached from Ajax) from playing for them?
Eriksen had a wonderful freekick for Spurs. Good to see him rocking the set pieces just as he did at Ajax.
I had a few wonderful weekends with Tottenham Hotshits getting hammered and dropping points like hot potatoes. Amongst others thanks Luis for the joy. I hate that shit club and still hope they once get relegated.
^Spurs won't get relegated, they have too much talent and the bottom five or so teams in the EPL are hardly better than your home club. Don't know why you hate the club so much; there's certainly other clubs that are more deserving of hatred (Chelsea and Man City come to mind).
Spurs hooligans injured dozens of Feyenoord fans in the 70s and early 80s when they met in Europe. Tottenham pretty much introduced hooliganism in the Netherlands. Afaik there is still a lot of resentment in Rotterdam.
That would explain things though truth be told most English teams were plagued with hooligans at that time. Of course there is also the long history of bad blood between Feyenoord and Ajax fans. I remember when I was in Utrecht in the late 1970s on a fellowship I asked my cousin about going to Rotterdam for the Ajax match and he just laughed at me asking if I had some kind of death wish.
That cannot be true, as in those days Feyenoord and Ajax fans slept in front of the tobacco shops to secure tickets for the Feyenoord Ajax match and we were in the same stands, no seperations in those days. I know because I was one of those in that line waiting for the shop to open. It all changed in the 80's after those fokking Tottenham Hotshit matches.
It was back in 1978 and I guess I cannot answer your comment at this point only that it wasn't advisable.
Totally agree. It is not even a people's club but it is still a mass production facility of pure rubbish and scum.
What a great night of CL football. Two teams with seemingly no chance to advance and the matches go down to the final whistle. Chelsea overcome their deficit but Dortmund fall just short despite having the better play against Madrid. This is the way football should be played!
Seedorf is under pressure it seems. Some reports suggest he is being fired soon. Has more to do with a power struggle, not wanting to be a puppet, than results. Not the most recent pic, but: The problem: Their own Francis Underwood:
If it us true then it is such a shame that Seedorf has lend itself to be an in between coach at a former top club that has a decreasing budget and status. A mistake he has made is to not get in a good tactical older coach like Rijkaard did with ten Cate. Rijkaard was the "nice guy", ten Cate the "bad guy". Seedorf is the ultimate good guy with his smile and upbeat demeanor. He also needed a ten Cate. I have always been a fan of Foppe de Haan. Pleasant in the media, not so much on the field and loads of experience. Not sure if he would even consider it. Anyway Seedorf should have had his ten Cate lined up the moment he was asked. All he had to focus on apart from developing himself. There is an older experienced coach at Milan though. However I would opt for a fresh start. He did not even bad with the material he got. Did not expect him to beat Roma in their own stadium for example. Maybe with a better setup he would have made it impossible to fire him as he would have truly surprised people.
Thought that Bayern had no ideas. But that was not what did them in only or even primarily. The goal in the first leg was avoidable. 2 goals from set pieces with a header. Bayern has enough big guys. Organisation should have taken care of that. Then pressure mounts and goal 3 happens also. 4th goal was funny. Bayern needs to sort out their defense also. It was not only a high line that gave the attacking no room to do something, just defensive errors also.
@DRB - Bayern has the same trouble against park the bus defenses that Barca does; they are just too slow and deliberate and don't have a plan 'B' When these kinds of teams give up the first goal in a match against a quality team they will suffer.
I dont buy the whole plan A plan B thing. Teams dont win tournaments or leagues because of plan B. They need to excecute plan A well enough. Pep's Barcalona did that, for a much greater number of years than anyone before. Call its a miracle or a fluke, its probably something in between. But i think that they have produced the highest level of football i will ever see, i truely do. Resources wise, the EPL has cannibalised every other league. The top 5-15 clubs buy up every promising young talent across europe. The EPL ( or actually Barclays premier league.. i apologise), in all this time, have not made a any/grand impression. They have the, by FAR, highest income compared to continental europe. They are all (ALL!) if im not mistaken, privately owned and are not worried about breaking even let alone anything else. So where is all this grand football supposed to be? I watch the Barclays Premier League often, but rarely see great football. I see the highest number of quality players on a pitch, but they dont play to play. The focus almost always is on not losing the game, and hoping a counterattack will get you a goal. Great league for defenders to learn how to defend inside their box(cough vlaar cough). And as we've all learned by now if only thanks to Ajax vs the great Mancity, if your playing against english defenders you must play with a false striker.
I have seen some good games from Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton and also City. I like the league. Can't say that about all of their fans. Bit like France. Like the country, but certainly not all the French
I also have to say that I saw the game Liverpool vs Chelsea and I felt some respect for how Chelsea defended. It's not part of Dutch culture to even give it a nod, but I thought it contained it's own beauty as well. Defending that way is a skill that I admire somehow. How many times do you see a team caving into pressure to then concede in the final minutes? The level of organisation executed by Chelsea is something a Dutch team could never do. They would always go down due to a deflection from a shot, lose a header duel, concede a penalty or whatever. Chelsea almost did not give away a chance against a team that moaned down so many teams at their home turf. I remember a Liverpool Arsenal game this season that became bloody really fast. Like minutes into the game. Chelsea missed some top players and needed a win. Mou has a really good record against the best teams in the league. He brings something to the table that other teams have to deal with. Not talk out of it by choosing the moral high ground. It's something that is thrown at a team and needs to be answered.
To cover some of the points noted. I think the EPL has changed a lot over the past 10 years. The new managers that are coming up are playing more free flowing football (and remember that ManU under SAF played quite interesting offensive football). Liverpool & Everton are especially fun to watch these days. Mourinho is a wonderful manager and tactician. Now we might not like his defensive approach as displayed in the last two matches (CL and Liverpool) but as DRB notes they played things perfectly and were rarely threatened. You know that if Chelsea get the first goal in a match it's going to be a real uphill climb to get a result. Yes the league has huge amounts of money because of television and that's not going to change anytime soon as they have good long term contracts in place. Here in the US, NBC shows every single match either on TV or Internet, no other Euro league even comes close and the poor Bundesliga is on GolTV that I don't even subscribe to! A lot of the owners also have big €s in their pockets so they can buy the best players.
So it seems that la Liga have accumulated now the most UEFA points in a single season and over a 5 year span: 22.142 in a single season and 96.855 over 5 seasons.
I ♥ Athletico!!! They were gracious winners and congratulated all the Chelsea players before going to the end and acknowledging their supporters. Simeone really has them playing good football. Of course I will support them in the CL final as I really don't like their cross town rival. Will be interesting as we will be in Zagreb Croatia the night of the final and probably all the Croats will cheer for Modric's team in white.