News: 2018 Other Teams Discussion Thread (spoilers)

geez - what happened to the middle of the field at Wembley Stadium - it looks barren

 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/wembley-pitch-terrible-condition-spurs-13356350

 

Nice day for Serie A clubs in the Champions League. Roma, Juve, Inter and Napoli all winners by a combined margin of 11-1, Inter giving up the solitary goal

 

BREAKING NEWS: Sebastian Giovinco is back in the #Italy squad! More to follow... #Azzurri #TFC

— Football Italia (@footballitalia) October 5, 2018

TFC is terrible this year but this call up makes things easier for DC United.

 

TFC is terrible but for Giovinco in 2018 it's still 17 goals and 19 assists across all competitions. So far. For now his worst MLS season.

 

We'll see if he works but he can't certainly be worse than what we have right now. Balotelli is completely out os shape; Immobile is a Terminator when he plays with Lazio, but when he goes to the NT he's a ghost (kind of like a' la Twellman situation). Cutrone is really good, but he's also very young and does not have much international experience. Italy has won one game in over 12 months. A friendly vs Saudi Arabia 2-1. Mancini is a good coach, he gives players possibilities, he probably remembers being ostracized by the NT despite being one of the best players around at his time, so he doesn't want to do the same mistake it was done wuth him back then.

 

I just signed up Fubo TV, I feel like I am on a astroship.

 

geez ... that stands are really empty for the Atlanta/NewEngland game .... oh yeah, thats right ... college football

 

Box score says 45122, of course the stadium holds around 75K which it has for several matches this season. A 16 yr old scored for Atlanta in his first match.

 

Matias Almeyda led a shitty Chivas team to an unlikely CONCACAF title. He'd been whispered as a candidate for the Mexican job. Today he signed with San Jose.

That's a BIG grab for a forgettable team like SJ. I predict he'll turn them around instantly next season. (Although they probably have the least talented roster in MLS.)

 

I will try to remember this post in March when I ask myself who in the hell is that guy coaching San Jose
I have only seen like 15 minutes or so of SJ this season. I don't hate them so I usually see more of them.

 

Maybe.

For a long, long time, foreign coaches would always find a way to screw up in MLS. The socialist salary structure, the long travel, the climate; there's a lot of ways MLS was a very different beast. Lest we forget Ruud Gullit.

(I'd also opine that most good coaches in Europe are only good coaches because they're able to outspend the bad coaches. And research shows that coaches are really only worth a few points per season so the difference between a "good" coach and a "bad" coach is almost meaningless. This is less pronounced outside of Europe though.)

It's only recently that a lot of teams have found a way to have the FO do all the personnel management and let the coach do the coaching. But now Manboobs Martino and Patrick Viera have paved the way for more successful international coaches. I suspect that we'll see a lot more and a lot better foreigners coming to MLS as coach. That's good for everybody.

Almeyda is a really remarkable catch for SJ. He was being floated for Mexico, Costa RIca, Colombia, Lazio, some ever whispered him to be the new coach of Argentina. He could pick from virtually any team in the world and he chose the San Jose Earthquacks. That's crazy.

 

I couldn't figure this out. Does he like that the field is close to the airport?

 

SJ is west coast DC United

 

I wasn't aware the DCU monkey actually had a pair of cymbals. I had only given it credit for trying to play one.

 

So, Houston wins the USOC but it's out of playoff race; I think the last time it happened was in 2013 (us). Wondering how many times it has happened in the past.

 

The Open Cup is funny like that. Off the top of my head, I think most of the winners since MLS began have either been a team at the top of the league (trying for a double or triple) or a bottom-feeder. Teams that have no hope of a Supporters' Shield or a shot at MLS Cup will often throw all their weight behind an Open Cup run because it's a trophy they actually have a chance to win. That way, the season doesn't feel totally "lost" for the fans.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...tadium-sale-plans-fa-sport-england-grassroots

The English Football Association is in talks to sell Wembley Stadium to Shahid Khan who owns Fulham and the Jacksonville Jaguars. While he has stated his plans to upgrade Fulham's stadium, he does have plans to use Wembley as the European home of the Jaguars, especially as the NFL has long term plans for expansion into Europe.

This could get interesting.

 

Since Jacksonville never made any sense as an expansion location and attendance over the long term has confirmed that, I would expect Jacksonville to decamp to London, possibly in stages, if Khan gets Wembley. When you think about it, the flight from the East Coast to London isn't substantially longer than DC, NY or Boston to LA or SF.

 

Surely there are more concussionball fans in Jacksonville (FL) than there are in London.

 

It doesn't matter. The NFL cares more about £s than fans and I'm sure there are more £s to be gotten in London than Jacksonville.

 

There is more time difference, 5 hours which could potentially become 6 if Europe decides to adopt daylight savings year round, something which is in talks and will be decided in the next months, although the decision will be possibly left to each individual country. But it's also true that London is one of the few cities in Europe where you can fly to with a day flight (at least from some cities on the East Coast) therefore sparing some jet lag and tiredness.

 

What I never understood really is, if NFL is trying to promote american football in Europe, why they do not change the time of the Superbowl. Starting at 6~7pm on a sunday night basically means almost nobody in Europe will watch it. I understand and respect the tradition bla-bla-bla po-po-po, but it doesn't help you getting your product more popular over there

 

I am also sorry MLS cup is being put on a saturday night at 7:30pm EST, that will kill European viewers. I was in a pub in Milan last winter, over there it was past 10pm when Seattle and TFC were playing, at first we were some 25 ~ 30 people all there for the viewing party, then all the people who had come to watch Juve-Inter before MLS cup started, began watching it too. Eventually you had two big rooms with big screens and 90% of the bar watching MLS Cup. This year it will be a lot more difficult.