"Bon dia a tots!": The Other Teams thread [R]

Its Bilbao
Its their TM

 

Me too but let's realize it that no matter how many LPB drop that Barca will drop equally or even more the way Lucho coaches. When you are handed a gift you don't throw it out the window.

 

Helmond Cup update:

Stoke City 1-2 Chelsea

Next:
Saturday 1 April
Premier League, Round 30
Chelsea -v- Crystal Palace

 

I saw the 3-0 early scoreline and thought of you. I guess Eintracht can (and likely will) grab back that 6th spot when they host Hamburg later today but nice to have Cologne in the mix. Lots of excitement in Germany.

In France things are too settled for CL (with Monaco, PSG and Nice all 13 points ahead of 4th placed Lyon (no CL barring a Europa win or epic rally). Great race for first place though, esp. as leader Monaco still has CL to worry about while PSG no longer does.

In Italy, Juve is running away with another title, Roma and Napoli look pretty solid for CL and Lazio and Inter have Europa pretty well for now, but nothing a couple win loss swings could not change.

I think anyone who cares knows what is happening in La Liga (this being Barca forum), and in EPL. I did see that 538 (the Nate Silver stats site hosted by ESPN) now gives Arsenal just a 24% chance at CL. The numbers are pretty fascinating, wish they did this for all leagues (actually they do, just switch leagues in the drop down menu): https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/ The full EPL stats for CL are Chelsea over 99%, Tottenham! 88%, ManC 87%, with the real battle for fourth, Liverpool 68%, ManU 31%, Arsenal 24%, Everton 2%, all others less than 1% individually.

Sadly it does not do EL predictions only winning league and CL.

P.S. It still gives barca a decent shot at winning Liga but you can look that up for yourself.

 

Hope posting this doesn't come back to haunt me but I found it in the Juventus forum so it's not incendiary or anything just funny:

 

Still time for RB Leipzig to drop out of the top 4 despite the 9 point lead currently! They do probably have the easiest remaining fixtures on paper than the other teams competing for top 4, but then again their last two matches were against teams in the bottom five and they lost both.

Also finishing 4th could be a problem since they won't be seeded in the CL playoff round draw.

 

Go to the 10 minute mark to see a screamer by Poldi to win the game in this, his last international game for Germany, for whom he has now scored 49 goals

 

One of the best long range I've seen in years.

England is like Argenitna, when playing another big team, they either draw or lose.

 

I dunno if it was that good! Defending was horrible. Nice shot though.

In other news, congrats to Syria for their 1-nil win over Uzbekistan. Think the match was played in Malaysia. They travel to ROK now for what is surely the match of their lives early next week. They are two points behind Korea for second-place.

 

Amazing they got a win, but have to wonder if their team is somehow aligned with Assad (and honestly how could it not be), then it might be like rooting for North Korea. Underdogs sure, but also the well fed, politically neutered at best, jingoistic toys of a strong man dictator. That said, I know nothing of the team make up or background so I hope I am wrong.

 

I dunno. I read the Syrian manager only earns $300/month and the players are also scraping by. Better off than the average Syrian for sure but that's mainly because they are presumably not living in Syria.

PS... I would put China in the same pot as North Korea. Their players are totally overpaid for how (not) good they are, while millions live in extreme poverty (< $2/day) in China! I'm enjoying watching their failings in this WCQ campaign (although they won today).

But enough politics...

 

You're still living in 1860s'

enough said

 

Right because there aren't still 150 million people in China living in extreme poverty.

 

they are contenders to win the next WC with Germany and maybe France.

Argentina has produced the best coaches in recent years but none of them managing the NT. So Sad for Messi because he will never win the WC.

 

Well, didnt Brazil won majority of their games prior to 2014? also won Confederation thrashing Spain 3-0. The WC itself would be a totally different thing, espcially at KO stage where a single mistake can decide your fate. Brazil also looking good as ever prior to 2006 WC, destroyed Argentina in Confederation and #1 in Conmebol (on superior goal difference against Argentina) .


Argentina reached multiple tournament finals in recent years simply because of Messi dragging them out of trouble most of the time. Otherwise, they would reach QF at maximum. Messi mere presence already an adventage for his teammate, its too bad they never pick any decent manager since Sabella. Tata was good but did not resolve Argentina actual problem.

Now they're back to 2009-2010 period again, except Messi was able to scored and setting up goals against Uruguay, Colombia and Chile, so they got 9 points out of 12 in last 4 games literally from Messi goal and assist alone, otherwise they're in #6 or #7 position right now.

 

I think Brazil with Tite they can do well next year WC. Besides, 2014 they only had Neymar. Dani was out of form, Maico was semi-retired, Dante and David Luiz as their main CBs, Fred was the CF. Now they have more mature and experienced Neymar, plus talented young players like Gabriel Jesus, Fabinho, Marquinhos, Casemiro, Douglas Costa, Coutinho...etc.

Argentina didn't change much from 2014 squad and the average age is 29.5. Without Messi and maybe Masch, this team can easily lose to Venezuela and Bolivia as the coaches still insist on calling players like Higuain and Aguero among others aka the biggest NT bottlers of all time.

Messi could ask the AFA to appoint a decent manager. I believe he has such influence if he wants to.

 

The problem is that AFA is corrupt and out of money, so they don't have money for better coaches. In last Copa America AFA didn't have money to fly the team, and Messi even had to pay the guards their salary. If Messi wanted a better coach, he would have to pay it for himself also, which he propably should do. Far cry from NT-teams like Germany who built 10M facilities for WC14 alone. Now relate that to Argentina in the final and you see how much non seen stuff has been against Messi in NT, literally everything, yet they've been in the three last major finals and lost them in ET or SO's. And Higuain had 2 1on1's and a tapin to win them all in normal time.

 

So Messi suspended 4 national team matches for mouthing off to the officials in the Chile match! Well... he'll get some rest at least.