Activate Another Lever and Still Lose to a Madrid Remontada - The Small Teams Thread

Yeah, but also Chelsea and Spurs are generally more appealing to your average football fan than anyone outside the top 2 in Spain. There are 30 league matches between the top 6 per season, so almost every week there's an EPL match that's more appealing at the global level than all but 2 La Liga games per year. That keeps moderate fans engaged all season long.

Though honestly, I think people exert too much energy worrying about where their favorite league ranks quality-wise. If its still your favorite league now, during this down period, then its obviously still #1 to you so who cares if there are a lot of Man City wankers out there?

 

If you're having a bad day, just remember...

De Jong forfeited 2 years salary, settled for a pay cut to try and avoid Europa league with Man United only to be knocked out of the Europa league by Man United. pic.twitter.com/WNGZZ0fY2c

— Troll Football (@TrollFootball) February 24, 2023

 

Surely this is a joke

 

Sort of like James and Carlo.........Not the best choice to do that.

FDG would eventually get into the XI by merit when Barca continue to get embarrassed against the big teams.

 

This is the point i'm making, all of this talk about La Liga being irrelevant, irrelevant to whom?, as you say, generally "common folks in Europe don't care and don't worry about what happens outside of the country during the weekend", it might be a little less so with the EPL as far as the international audience goes due to marketing, but they are all the same

 

One good thing they did in Great Britain is to not televise the 15h00 Saturday matches. I think this really built the fan bases of clubs that don't ever win anything, and often play in lower divisions. Forced people to go to the ground if they wanted to see their team. Also incentivizes taking a road trip to see your club play live in away matches, which really helps enhance the passion one feels for a club. (With the internet people can now get around this rule somewhat)

The time (15h00) is also convenient for attending a match live for all ages groups, as opposed to say 21h00 on a Sunday.

 

It’s not just their own matches they stop being televised. All televised football games during those times are banned, not just U.K. ones.

I can’t watch La Liga games (foreign) on Amazon (foreign) if those matches are a 3 pm kickoff. I’ve missed a few Madrid games because of it.

 

They're top of La Liga. And in the Copa del Rey semifinals. It's not bad for a transitioning club.

Remember between 2003 and 2006 we had Ronaldo, Figo, Beckham, Zidane and Owen yet couldn't win the league?

 

Yeah this right here is significant.

This is crazy.. I think barcelona can't even escape this one. I think they're possibly royally screwed. With all the evidence and the different rata abandoning ship? Even Tebas tone had changed.

 

Why is there continual news about Barca; yet nothing about ManCity who have over 100 violations?

 

Yeah, I would definitely have an IPTV subscription if I lived in the UK. Mainly for that reason, but also the cost of Sky Sports is quite high, I hear.

 

What continual news? Considering the severity this hasn’t got nearly enough coverage around Europe.

 

Why isn't it breaking news everywhere. We are literally witnessing the Spanish calciopoli before our eyes and it's not even top news around the world.

You know what I just remembered when I read that the referees were instructed to favour Barca. Amongst the countless of times we were robbed at Barca there is one that stood out. It's one where the referee had a clear view of Suarez kicking Varane from behind and his assistant shouting foul foul over and over and him just ignoring it. In hindsight that looks as obvious of corruption as they come. There are alot of calls not just towards Barca but also against us that I feel were done deliberately to stop us from winning LaLiga. Remember that bogus handball against Sevilla that stopped us winning the league or when a referee for the first time in the VAR era stood by his (wrong) decision when called to the VAR monitor by the VAR referee. My word, someone should just namedrop ESL into one of these articles so that Perez can get off his butt and demand Barca be stripped of league titles and CLs that they won by cheating!!

 

This user on RedCafe made an absolute germ of post - it is all sourced, so this is not speculation:
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/barcelona-shady-payments-nothing-to-see-here.463863/post-30204447

This is actually worse than I anticipated.

 

This is astounding.

The biggest cheating scandal in sports history and it's still being lightly reported.

 

One day the UEFA cheating might finally come to light. Mourinho was right on the money as usual.

"If I tell Uefa what I really think and feel, my career would end now," Mourinho said. "Instead I will just ask a question to which I hope one day to get a response: Why? Why? Why Ovrebo? Why Busacca? Why De Bleeckere? Why Stark? Why? Because every semi-final the same things happen. We are talking about an absolutely fantastic football team, so why do they need that? Why? Why does a team as good as they are need something [extra] that is so obvious that everyone sees it?

To this day, these questions remain unanswered.

 

Barca paid 7.5million Euros to media outlets. Can you imagine the fallout if this affair goes all the way through? The very foundations of football will be shaken. Everybody has a vested interest in shutting up right now. There's a reason our club refused to release a statement on the matter - the future of the league hangs in the balance. Tebas tried to brush the issue away and the closest thing he's said is for Laporta to step down... as if that is in any way an apt consequence.

 

Are there any steps in Spain that are actually being taken? Like someone open an investigation?
If Barcelona is a team that also plays in a European competition, why isn't UEFA investing as well?
I mean, I know it's all useless, nobody will touch them, but still, show something...

 

We all know how this end up. Barca won’t be held accountable and avoid any real repercussions for this crap. The ugly truth is Liga/UEFA don’t want to tear down their poster boys for all that is “right” with football.

 

Casemiro says his time in the Premier League has been more difficult than LaLiga 😮 pic.twitter.com/qXPlPCOJic

— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) February 24, 2023

 

Age and being part of a worse team might have something to do with it.

 

Yeah playing for Madrid l, every game is easy. He must not forget we did the EPL gauntlet last year lol

 

Exactly.

He had the advantage of 2 world class midfielders in Kroos and Modric throughout his career at Real Madrid. Moreover, he had the benefit of playing with a front 3 of Bale, Benzema, Ronaldo [to a lesser extent James Rodriguez].

Who does he have that's World Class at ManUtd?