Spanish Segunda is the strongest second division in Europe. Of course people who only watch The EFL Championship and the 2.BuLi will disagree.
Are you kidding me? Nothing and I mean nothing beats English football. Nothing. Seriously, I agree. I watch a ton of the Championship and a decent amount of 2BL. The Championship is fast, direct, and physical, making it fun to watch. The 2BL has so much parity that anyone can beat anyone. The tightest of margins separates those form the top and bottom. It’s way more very organized and crowds are top notch. On the rare occasion I do watch the Segunda, I always come away thinking wow….. this league is littered with individual talent and the teams play such a free flowing and tactical game. I think the players overall are better than the Championship and 2BL. I wish we had more TV exposure of the Segunda.
Quick turn-around for Shaq, who returned to training with Tenerife this morning. 🏆 Feliz e ilusionado 🥇💪🏿 Sin tiempo que perder, #ShaqMoore se suma al trabajo de pretemporada junto a sus compañeros 👍🏿.#PretemporadaCDT #RecuperamosNuestroAliento #GoldCup21 pic.twitter.com/9grc48x3Fy— CD Tenerife 🏴 (@CDTOficial) August 4, 2021
To summarize what I'm reading after Shaq's first day back, his future is uncertain: Tenerife had an injury to one of their attackers -- Nahuel. They would like to hit the market to bring in a replacement, but money is an issue. Since money is an issue, selling Shaq might be an option. And they see him as a valuable asset post-Gold Cup. One report said that Shaq had a conversation about his uncertain future with the sporting director this morning. We'll see what happens. Overall, there was a lot of positive fanfare surrounding his return. Here is Shaq's Day 1 interview (in Spanish):
I hate these arguments because no one wins but I'm just surprised that everyone here seems to be in agreement that the Segunda is better than the Championship. I think the Segunda Division plays better soccer, which is generally conducive to better development. I always hate when our players go to the Championship because lifting weights and getting in ridiculous shape is a short term gain rather than a long term improvement. However, I can't agree with the Segunda Division having better teams. There's just too much spillover from the premier league that results in the top half of the Championship being wildly rich and filled with players that do not belong whatsoever in a second division. Take a look at the most valuable players from each league, for instance: https://www.transfermarkt.us/championship/marktwerte/wettbewerb/GB2 https://www.transfermarkt.us/championship/marktwerte/wettbewerb/ES2 They're just incomparable. The same goes for the team market values, especially in the top halves: https://www.transfermarkt.us/championship/startseite/wettbewerb/GB2 https://www.transfermarkt.us/laliga2/startseite/wettbewerb/ES2 The average quality of player isn't really that close, and that's for the same reason why a bottom table EPL team is so much better than a bottom table La Liga team. There's just so much more money there. Looking at 538's rankings, which pretty much an ELO calculation, there are 10 Championship teams in the top 200, and only 1 Segunda team: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/global-club-rankings/ Is the soccer disgusting? Yeah. But bottom half teams in the Championship are in the promotion playoff in the Segunda. They're just better.
well...the EPL has only recently started getting results in Europe, basically...if you look at the last decade or so. Why? they brought in good (and foreign) coaches. klopp, guardiola, tuchel etc individual player quality is important but to me the level of play with the same players can be wildly different. I think the championship has many players that shouldnt really be in a second division - but the quality of play is so so poor...mostly because of the coaching and soccer culture in the UK. Look at the laundry list of american players that have played in the championship - and where have they gone from there in terms of development? and career-wise? hasnt been a platform for growth, at all. If I could choose - I wish more americans could play in spain than england. easy decision. Not sure how competitive segunda teams would or wouldnt be with the championship teams - but the quality of player in general is higher in spain than UK....they are more technical and better players, imo.
I think the important point about both the Championship and Segunda (heck, throw 2. Bundesliga in there as well) is that we shouldn't be shocked when players who are playing well in any of those leagues perform well for the USMNT.
Anyone in a position to comment on his Spanish? He's pretty fluid and comfortable in expressing himself, but how is the grammar, the vocab, etc?
He sounds a little puerto rican/dominica but yeah a little spanish too. definitely not a mexican or mexican-american accent
Prices in England are ridiculously inflated. That people make more money does not mean they have greater acquisitive power. That's a reason why often people in rich countries marvel that people in poor countries can live on 60 bucks per month. They fail to take into consideration than in such countries you can shop for food for the week with 2 bucks. PS: Also, if you find sources for valuation in English, you're going to find bias in favor of anything English. That's how the entire language-sphere thing works. You look for sources in another language, you get an entirely different picture.
Pretty good. Even his accent is pretty good (that's the hardest part for Gringos). He's obviously not native but, as you say, he speaks fluidly and at a good cadence which indicates to me that he's able to "think" in Spanish instead of translating from English to Spanish.
It does have greater acquisitive power when you're buying products from the same location. The English tax is a thing even on foreign players, but no team is going to accept an offer from a Spanish team for $10m over an offer from an English team for $11m. They're just going to reject the Spanish offer and hold out from the English team until they offer $13m. And Transfermarkt is a German website. Don't see how that's relevant.
Just curious... how long would someone be in a foreign country before expecting to be fluent? I get that it varies... but just on average.
Many people never become fluent (I knew several Americans in Mexico City who, after 5 years, could hardly order tacos). With Spanish specifically, the vast majority of Americans who didn't grow up in a Spanish-speaking house will never, ever develop an accent that is remotely close to authentic, so Moore is definitely in the top few percentile I'd say. For those who are committed to learning (and are good at it), it might take 3 or 4 years to become pretty fluent.
As an ESL teacher, I can say that it part of it - but only part - depends on individual variations. The vast bulk of it comes down to 1) your age, 2) the amount of the target language in an individual's environment, 3) the complexity of the target language and 4) the amount of motherf#@*ing hours you put in!!! Spanish isn't exactly easy, but it is one of the easier languages compared to German, let alone Arabic or Japanese. The European fluency classification runs A1 (beginner), A2 (elementary), B1 (pre-intermediate), B2 (intermediate), C1 (advanced) and C2 (proficient). Roughly, C2 is for taking a PhD in a language/its literature or becoming a lawyer offering legal advice in English. C1 is for a CPA auditing a company's books for international consumption, an AP-level teacher or an historian doing research in that language. B2+ is for starting a degree taught through a language and B2 is plenty for day-to-day work. Moving from one level to another depends on whether you live in that country or not and where you're starting from, but if you're a solid A2 in Spanish, move to Toledo, Spain and take 3 one-hour lessons a week, you should finish B1 and B2 combined within 10-12 months and C1 in another 4 months - as long as you force yourself to go out and do everything that doesn't involve medical or legal issues in Spanish. If you stay in Toledo, Ohio and take 3 lessons a week from a native-speaking teacher, it's an academic year per level.
Man, I miss my ESL teaching days. The most powerful thing is butt power -- how long you sit your ass in a chair and study something. Shaq has clearly put in a lot of butt work
Slightly disagree about ass in a chair being the most powerful factor; that belongs to actually speaking the damned language and being prepared to suffer through the inevitable outbreaks of foot-in-mouth disease. Mind you, it's definitely a very close second. And if Shaq has put in the butt work, that bodes very well for his future. Guys who put in the work in one area have a habit of putting it in in other areas. I'm still backing him to reach La Liga again.
By "ass in chair" I simply means putting in the work, whether that's books, conversations, movies, night clubs, etc. I was also told once that the best dictionary is one with hair, so maybe he has a little boo stashed away somewhere. Reminds me too of a woman I once tutored who worked in the healthy ministry of one of the Spanish provinces. Despite studying English on and off, having pretty good reading and speaking skills, she could not for the life of her understand spoken English, at least at nearly the same level. She was understandably incredibly frustrated and asked how she could improve, if ever. I gave her the usual platitudes of time, persistence, talking and listening as much as she could, music, movies and all that but some people just have more agile ears and tongues than others.
On the bench: XI del #CDTenerife y reservas #blanquiazules.#FuenlaTenerife #RecuperamosNuestroAliento pic.twitter.com/H6oQOogvav— CD Tenerife 🏴 (@CDTOficial) August 15, 2021