We have our own Sub-forum!

Discussion in 'Belgium' started by panicfc, Aug 20, 2004.

  1. panicfc

    panicfc Member+

    Dec 22, 2000
    In my chair, typing
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    With Gooch kicking butt, Anderlecht, Club Brugge, Standard Liege, Antwerp and I'm sure a few other clubs around --- we have a subforum!
     
  2. feyenoord!!

    feyenoord!! Member

    Jun 1, 2004
    USA
    ??

    are the USA and Canada grouped together?
     
  3. DSC05

    DSC05 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jun 25, 2002
    Detroit, MI
    Club:
    --other--
    I bet the Belgian posters will be glad. Now we just have to get the old thread moved in here and start a bunch of new threads. I have all sorts of ideas...
     
  4. BPBlueSox

    BPBlueSox Member

    Ajax
    Netherlands
    Aug 21, 2003
    Georgia
    Club:
    AFC Ajax
    Where's the love for Luxembourg?
     
  5. Huss

    Huss Member

    Aug 1, 1995
    New York, NY
    Club:
    New York Red Bulls
    fill it up and move it up :)
     
  6. panicfc

    panicfc Member+

    Dec 22, 2000
    In my chair, typing
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Does this mean we can move our threads from Scandi land to Chocoland now?
     
  7. tomo

    tomo New Member

    May 25, 2004
    ANTWERP, BELGIUM
    I only just noticed. Nice work!
     
  8. afgrijselijkheid

    Dec 29, 2002
    mokum
    Club:
    AFC Ajax

    at least its not called benelux
     
  9. Blondo

    Blondo Member+

    Sep 21, 2013
    Hey-ho this sub-forum has been around for 10 years ...

    [​IMG]

    Gooch moved on ... slapping her cute butt instead ... in doing so, he proved to be more successful over the past 10 years than all Belgian clubs put together.
     
  10. panicfc

    panicfc Member+

    Dec 22, 2000
    In my chair, typing
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This thread was dead for 10 years - you just wanted to post that picture. hilarious!

    Gooch - been doing the business ... well except the past four years or so.
     
  11. Blondo

    Blondo Member+

    Sep 21, 2013
    Out to prove a point ... this subforum has become one of the saddest on Bs ... just like our clubs #useless.
     
  12. panicfc

    panicfc Member+

    Dec 22, 2000
    In my chair, typing
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Well that's in your hands. Post more, create interesting topics, etc.

    It was going pretty good a while back, when I was posting a lot, but I've taken a bit of a hiatus the past few years.
     
  13. Blondo

    Blondo Member+

    Sep 21, 2013
    I'm confident that posters like you made this place a lot more fun/sticky than it currently is ... had expected this stickyness factor to return during Brazil2014 ... sadly that didn't happen.

    There you have it ... Belgians are bad waffles ... we just don't stick around/together.

    [​IMG]
     
  14. panicfc

    panicfc Member+

    Dec 22, 2000
    In my chair, typing
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I love waffles.

    ==
    What club do you support?
     
  15. Blondo

    Blondo Member+

    Sep 21, 2013
    A little provincial club near Leuven that nobody has ever heard of and that has high hopes to one day be back in 2nd division. I don't feel deeply engaged in the Pro League but if I had to choose one club, I'll probably go for Anderlecht ... another decade of being big in Belgium but they've remained toddlers beyond the borders of our small country ... toying with crybabies is still providing them with much rejoicing and gayness though.

    [​IMG]


    PS Club Brugge fans have my sympathy ... they're friendly bunch too.
     
  16. panicfc

    panicfc Member+

    Dec 22, 2000
    In my chair, typing
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I like Belgians in general, funny people, know how to eat, and how to laugh, pretty good at football too.

    Club Brugge - I like the city better than Brussels. I think I could like Genk, Gent both seem interesting.

    I do like Roeselaare in volleyball. After the US, the Belgians are my go to volleyball country.
     
  17. Blondo

    Blondo Member+

    Sep 21, 2013
    Thank you for the compliments ... somebody should send you a case of Trappist beers.

    I was surprised that 60K fans turn up for a volleyball game (not the US v Belgium one but Poland v Serbia) ... must be the Polish lager that draws them in. Although it's the world cup, most Belgians pay little attention ... compared to football or cycling, volleyball doesn't get much coverage in Belgium (public media have to push it) ... our players have to travel the world for the Red Dragons but don't get paid (25 euros per diem seems insulting) ... it's the same sad story for many sports.

    In today's top news stories the Brugge v Anderlecht match featured more prominently eventhough that tie has lost importance due to the play-offs ... yet Spurs v Liverpool was on at the same time as Brugge v Anderlecht ... Belgian clubs and our FA should be scared ... the Pro League is losing eyeballs/revenue to the EPL and other competitions ... if they don't take action soon, e.g. join forces with the Eredivisie in a BeNe League, they could end up joining the struggle to survive like clubs, players, volunteers in other sports ... unlike our beers, our domestic league isn't a good product ... I doubt that the Pro League stands a chance ... we might even have to rejoin the Dutch forum before the end of this decade.
     
  18. panicfc

    panicfc Member+

    Dec 22, 2000
    In my chair, typing
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Case of Trappist beer would be great. Also send some waffles, and chocos.

    60k - that is crazy. I think the big event drew the crowd.

    US doesn't pay attention to vball either, well not enough. I'm up there for cycling too, but less now than before Lance killed the sport.

    Everybody watches EPL, and the Bundesliga and La Liga are pulling fans from the lesser leagues. Need to have better marketing.
     
  19. Blondo

    Blondo Member+

    Sep 21, 2013
    You can collect your goodies at the Belgian embassy :) or http://www.flandershouse.org/ ... actually the latter is worth considering if you're in the neighbourhood ... most likely it's free.

    Best marketing strategy ... look for new markets ... a BeNe League will still be hard to sell to foreign markets but at home you'd have a population of 28M instead of 11M ... it could make our clubs more competitive (in Europe) by increasing their revenue (better tv & commercial deals) and allowing them to offer our top talents reasons to stay ... merging into a BeNe-League will most likely have the single biggest impact on strengthening both the Pro League and the Eredivisie.
     
  20. panicfc

    panicfc Member+

    Dec 22, 2000
    In my chair, typing
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The BeNe-League would be a nice move, but the issue will remain --- will anyone pay to watch it? Odds are still no.

    "Come see the stars before they go to the EPL, La Liga or Bundesliga...." makes it a minor league, and maybe that is all it can be.

    Stars won't stay - too much money abroad. But, maybe what the trick is become a launching pad league for non-EU players. Scout the Americas, sign the Americas, sell the Americas... and the Belgians too.

    Years ago, I had this idea of an online website that offered games from the lesser leagues, add in Scandinavia, Czech, Poland, Greece, Switzerland, etc. Charge a low fee to gain membership and sell ads.... alas that ship has sailed.
     
  21. Blondo

    Blondo Member+

    Sep 21, 2013
    #21 Blondo, Aug 31, 2014
    Last edited: Aug 31, 2014
    Seeing that our clubs can't afford to buy quality players in Europe, they're already scouting corners of the world that other scouts overlook (mainly in Africa but also in the Americas ... as long as they're off the bigger club's radar) ... I agree with you ... it's the only way to locate the same quality of players for a price that our clubs can afford ... like Preud'homme said: Brugge needs to keep finding players like Castillo or Bacca.

    Still you need to convince these players to move to Belgium (or Holland) ... a bigger BeNe league with more competitive clubs can help ... it allows to improve not only the scouting apparatus but also lifts education/promotion to a higher level ... most importantly it can help clubs avoid losing their biggest talents when they're still too young/for a very low transfer fee (e.g. Januzaj, Musonda, Bakkali et al.) ... Cruijff's objective of trying to hold onto talents for longer, i.e. 23yo when they transfer out, seems optimistic ... I'm already amazed that the most expensive minor in world football, Tielemans (17yo during this season), still remains at Anderlecht ... with Januzaj, Musonda, Tielemans, Praet, Bruno, Bossaerts, Denayer, ... even Lukaku (21yo) you could have built a great squad ... one that gifted players from Belgium and beyond our borders will want to be a part of ... yet every year that we postpone the BeNe League, we lose ground and our clubs will only become less attractive to join.

    PS for clubs that are already struggling a BeNe League lower division can also help ... the Dutch and Belgian women are showing the way (already in their 3rd season ... they're also a testing ground for a men's BeNe League) ... a huge success if you consider that women's football is a lot less popular. The handball BeNe league also seems to provide a viable environment for struggling clubs ... still our football clubs don't need to wait untill they're in trouble.

    PPS it's only logical that the national football pyramides continue on a European level ... UCL isn't the solution ... should be an actual league(s) with relegation and promotion ... Benelux countries can lead the way ... the EU started small too.
     
  22. panicfc

    panicfc Member+

    Dec 22, 2000
    In my chair, typing
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Good points. What is the latest discussion on a Benelux league? Any discussion at all?

    I still don't see big money flowing to the new league, but it will help.
     
  23. Blondo

    Blondo Member+

    Sep 21, 2013
    Earlier this year Platini asserted that UEFA encourages smaller leagues to merge (Belgium and the Netherlands were top-of-mind and it looked like UEFA are monitoring our progress) ... bigger markets on the other hand, e.g. Russia, have to fend for their own as they already can benefit from economy of scale and should try to compete with the top leagues without resorting to mergers ... in older discussions (before they started researching international leagues as a way to combat financial inequality in 2012) UEFA used to oppose the concept of a BeNe league (according to our Dutch friends, the Germans did not like the idea of a bigger competitor slowing down the growth of the BL) ... yet the gap between clubs from Europe's major leagues and those from our (lesser) leagues has increased significantly that the problem can't be ignored anymore ... more importantly UEFA fears that the EPL is growing too powerful and most likely that's the main reason why they changed their stance.

    An evaluation of the current BeNe League formula (for women) has been scheduled for this season ... the objective isn't only to review the women's league but also to explore the possibility of launching a men's BeNe League ... the first season was a huge hit ... BeNe Orange (Holland) & Red (Belgium) were merged a year ahead of schedule in 2013 ... I had hoped that our FAs would be more open about future plans and "nurture" public debate but this hasn't happened yet ... maybe because of past failures, our FAs are only willing to communicate when they're confident they've dotted every single i ... regardless a men's BeNe league will only be possible when the clubs and their supporters get behind the idea ... there's plenty of support in Belgium while stakeholders in Holland might need more convincing (between the late 90s and the early noughties the majority of Dutch fans were against a BeNe league ... around 2006-2009 the opinion was split 50/50 ... since then polls show support for a BeNe League) ... although the BeNe league concept has come close to realisation on several occasions, it usually gets gridlocked in endless discussion ... soon we might have little to argue about as Gaillard (Platini's sr. advisor) said that professional football could disappear in 40 countries around the end of the current decade ... have to agree with Elvis: a little less conversation, a little more action please.

    PS doubting that club owners are after EPL levels of revenue ... Duchatelet (Standard) reckons we'd match France.
     
  24. panicfc

    panicfc Member+

    Dec 22, 2000
    In my chair, typing
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Such long replies....

    How are they measuring success in the women's league? Do people watch it on TV?

    Women's league over here- I try watching it, but its just not exciting enough for me to care.
     
  25. Blondo

    Blondo Member+

    Sep 21, 2013
    I know and I was trying to keep my replies short ... about measuring success: have to admit that I don't have info on which indicators were used to evaluate the league formula ... have to trust the FA when they assert that it's a success (seeing that the league is a year ahead of schedule could mean they're telling the truth) ... also there's plenty of news about hikes in gate receipts, new squads entering competition (instead of dropping out), active participation breaking records, etc. ... monitoring/listening to social media will allow for a better picture too ... still atm it's all about the right formula (it's a pilot project) and I'm guessing the clubs are cooperating to the fullest.
     

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