World Cup without the US as both Honduras and Panama turn their games around in the second half against Mexico and Costa Rica while the US loses against last placed T&T. Sorry to our posters from the US, but how to you manage to achieve that in a region where you have to be fourth out of 6 and where you can still qualify with a poor record like 3 wins out of 10 games?
He didn't retire. He would have stayed for another year probably two more if asked, but Bayern wanted Guardiola. Saying he retired was a polite way of putting it. Rudy and Thiago are not good enough in midfield and they are not doing that well. 5 points off the top in the Bundesliga and thrashed by PSG. I would be ecstatic if Bayern decided to rely on a Rudy/Thiago midfield, even with Rudy doing very well he is not going to push them to win CL titles.
Thiago was one the best players on the planet last year, and I'm sure he will improve under a new coach. Saying he isn't good enough is absurd!
Thiago is no where near being one of the best midfielders in the planet. When the big games came along he did nothing as usual. Bayern need to realise and realise quickly that Thiago will never match the other top midfielders in the world.
Thiago is a top 10 player in the world. At least. And definitely Bayern's best (other than Neuer). Lewy also has an argument.
Not a chance. Madrid and Barca alone between them have over 10 better players: Messi, Iniesta, Suarez, Pique, Marcelo, Ramos, Varane, Modric, Kroos, Bale and Ronaldo. That's before we look at the Bundesliga with Lewandowski, Vidal, Reus, Neuer and Auba. I could throw in Hazard, De Bruyne, Aguero, Pogba, Dybala etc. The list is simply too great. Beating average teams in the Bundesliga is not what makes a great. It's in the big games against teams of equal standing and Thiago has come up short time and time again.
PEA is not a top 10 player in the world. Costa, Lewandowski, Mbappe, Icardi, Suarez are all better and that's just the strikers. Once you start throwing in other attacking players in the mix, he falls further below. He's always had an excellent supporting cast behind him at BVB apart from Castro.
Sorry but this is just not true. Due to Reus always being injured he actually has a support cast much weaker than Cavani, Suarez, Lewandowski, Costa, Agueroand Benzema have. Yet he outscores the majority of them and scores in crucial games. He already has 10 league goals. The grass is not greener on the other side.
His supporting cast has included Reus, Götze, Miki, Dembélé, Weigl, Kagawa and Gundogan and occasionally Gurreiro. Not shabby at all. Our possession and pass stats should suggest that our midfield is far above average. He's the poster boy for a player who would be excellent at BVB but average elsewhere. Furthermore, he has no competition in the squad for key passes. Never had it with Miki, Reus nor Dembélé.
Not all at the same time and that is nothing compared to Benzema's of Ronaldo, Bale, James Rodriguez, Marcelo,Modric and Kroos. Or Lewandowski's over Robben, Ribery, Muller, Thiago, Vidal, James Rodriguez, Koman and Douglas Costa. Or how about Suarez at Barca with MESSI yes MESSI, that's before we get to Neymar, Iniesta, Alves, etc Our midfield is far above average, but those strikers have better numbers. I disgaree completely and believe Kagawa, Sahin and Mkhitaryan were never elite players at Dortmund either. They were good players doing well in a good team. A Reus get's his fair share of goals when he plays, but that's the case for most top strikers. Despite playing for Dortmund, a team ALWAYS weaker than Madrid/Barca/Bayern, he has put up numbers rivaling or better than their strikers. The guy is a phenomenon. He never gets injured and I hope he breaks the goal scoring record here. Since the financial recovery Dortmund have only had 5 truly elite players that could get into virtually any team in the world: Hummels, Gundogan, Reus, Lewandowski and Auba.
I am not a BVB expert by any means, but if the above were true, why do people keep buying your better players? I would think the second highest transfer ever in Dembele has to be in your list even if he isn't one of my favorite players. I don't have any argument against your statement, but it does make me ask about expectations, and are they reasonable? Good coaching can get more than the sum of its parts out of a team, but is it reasonable to expect silverware on the regular with inferior talent? I just wanted to raise that question, as I frequently lurk here and I am familiar with most of the forum's regular poster's positions, but I think you overstate your case. I mean there is literally nobody that can take Messi, Ronaldo, or Iniesta's spot. No player in the world who plays those positions could virtually "walk into their teams." The original conversation was about Auba and I wonder too how effective he would he be elsewhere? He seems very wasteful at times, but is there somebody else that would get the same number of chances and be less wasteful? Some of his wastefulness does come on chances that only a handful of strikers get into position to miss in the first place.
Well I would say there are two other categories of players that other clubs buy. 1. Very good youngsters, that with the right guidance can become world class very soon. 2. Good players, that work well alongside other world class players and the right system. I will expand on both. As a footballer I am a huge fan of Dembele. I was a believer in his talent as soon as I saw him. He is already a very good player and I believe he will be the best player in the world. It was a huge blow to lose such a player, but even more so because of what he could be. If he did not force the move and I had the choice 200 million and Dembele, I would choose Dembele. However, he falls under the same category as Weigl and the young Gotze, though he is even more talented than the two of them. They are already excellent players, but have/had the potential to be the best in the world in their position, but they aren't there yet. They need more guidance. Then there is the 2nd category of talented players that look good in the system, but I didn't think would do too well: Sahin, Kagawa and Mkhitaryan. Piszczek and Bender at their best would be in this category too. It depends what you mean by inferior talent. In 2013 and 2015/16 the team was excellent. I would be confident of both of those teams winning the Bundesliga and possibly winning the CL. The problem for those teams was Bayern had an even better squad. With the current squad this season and equally importantly the injuries, I think the best that can be expected is 2nd, undefeated in the cup unless we play Bayern and last 8 of the CL. That's the very best. Winning the league depends on a Bayern collapse more than anything we can do. I wouldn't put Iniesta on the same level as Ronaldo and Messi, but that's no slight to Iniesta. I agree Ronaldo and Messi are all time greats. It might take 30-50 years before we see their like again. What I meant by get into any team in the world, is that virtually every team in the world would make a place for them. Barca and Madrid being the exceptions, but even then there is a strong argument that Hummels, Lewandowski, Reus and Gundogan at his best would get in. Auba actually is not very wasteful. Statistically and with my eye test he is one of the most clinical strikers out there. People don't seem to realise that in general strikers on score 1/3 good chances. When Auba first came to Dortmund I didn't rate him, because he was used primarily as a winger and I thought he was not good enough, but even playing on the wing I noticed he had excellent position and was always in the right place to score goals, not just because of his speed, but his ability to read the game. No matter what team Auba played for he would always be an excellent poacher due to this. When you factor in his speed, then he becomes unplayable if you leave him a high line. He is OK at heading from crosses and he is excellent at pressing. His big weakness is his build up play is not at the level of say a Benzema, Lewandowski or Kane. That's what lets Auba down not his finishing which is comparable to any top striker. Messi is a freak and I would say without checking the stats, he genuinely scores around 60 percent of his good chances. Icardi is another very clinical striker, but there are not many other top strikers I would say are more clinical than Auba. Gabi Jesus is very young and has yet to do it in crucial games, but he is probably the most clinical after those two. The likes of Aguero and Lewandowski actually miss more than Auba, but they also have the ability to do the spectacular and create their goals out of nothing, which he lacks.
Your arguments are extremely biased and devoid of reality. Dortmund since the recovery have produced Götze, Pulisic, pre injury Sahin and fwiw Kagawa. They've also had Perisic who is killing it at Inter, Miki and developed the often overlooked Polish triangle of Lewandowski, LP and Kuba. Some Polak on Reddit compiled some solid numbers to show how BVB basically put the spine of the NT on the map. Weigl, Mo, Gurreiro all have tremendous potential. They just need a better coach.
How are they biased and biased to who? Gotze I would say is a borderline case similar to Dembele, but as I said Dembele was the more talented. An excellent player already and very close to becoming world class. What they lacked was the record of consistently making a difference against the best teams and experience. Pulisic is a talented kid with world class potential, but he is a long way behind Dembele and Gotze. Perisic has improved with age, but he wasn't at the level he is at now during his Dortmund days and even now isn't world class. Kuba is a great man and a legend, but he is not and has never been world class. I would have said the same for Sahin, Mkhitaryan and Kagawa. I am not surprised they struggled and the fans of the clubs they are at, made the same criticisms we make now and I made back then. Raphael, Weigl and Mo are great talents, but they are not world class yet. Weigl went backwards a bit last year. I strongly advocated signing Mo and I am glad we got him, but he is no Gundogan or Kroos. I've said previously that Keita is already a better player with more potential. Goretzka last year might not have been a better player, but had more potential. I am still very happy with Dahoud, but let's not overrate the talent we do have. World class strikers hit 79 goals in two seasons. World class attacking wide men score crucial goals in the against Madrid, Juvetus, Monaco, Liverpool and Tottenham. World class defenders start for world cup winning teams. World class midfielders like Gundogan go to the Etihad and outplay the likes of Silva and Toure.
Sancho has been pulled out of the U17 World Cup by Dortmund, does that mean they will use him in the first team? Or are they just being annoying?
Clearly, they just want to raise the chances of the German team and lower the ones of the English. It's obvious, isn't it?
Tottenham leads in Madrid. Any point they get in the matches against Madrid makes it very, very hard for us because we'd need a result in Madrid as well.
So you'd really consider that Dortmund is working together with the DFB to weaken England? Dortmund's interest is about developing a young player and about their youth team. Personally, I wouldn't have minded if he played the whole tournament but Dortmund didn't have to release him at all. But before the tournament, an agreement was found that he'd participate only in the group games. Now, England acts all surprised as if that decision was made just before the ko game, their coach even trying to stir shit up by saying that anything else than Sancho starting in the league wouldn't make any sense. He talks about a player that hasn't even played in the league yet. I don't know whether Cooper is just butthurt or an idiot, but again, this agreement was known before the tournament started.
Well I never suggested anything like that, someone else did. Well, the agreement was that they wouldn't recall him before the end of the group stage not that they definitely would do after. I don't think it's a surprise that people don't understand why Dortmund would recall a player from a World Cup just to sit on the bench, I've seen quite a few Dortmund fans say the same thing. It doesn't make a massive amount of sense from a developmental point of view never mind morale and endearing him to the club. Imagine how he must feel right now.
The Premier League teams are rising again. They have strong young teams. Heynckes going back to Bayern is probably the worst thing that could have happened to Dortmund. He is going to play a 4-2-3-1, make the best use of Muller and get the best out of the aging team. I wonder just how far he can take them.