No trouble in paradise, I can assure you. At first I was almost looking forward to it, DC United are undefeated when it comes to facing English opposition, and therein lies the problem.
Now now Motter Chavski has one or two english players on the squad...... Now if we were talking about Arsenal thats a whole different story.......
Do they? Until the late 80s, despite being a "massive" club, you were no different than many other English clubs, save for that one EC to your name. And there are plenty of teams that used to be big that aren't anymore. Atletico Madrid did the Spanish double within the decade, and spent two years in the Segunda. Liverpool have been hanging onto their "big" status fairly unsuccessfully for a decade now. With the money in the game now, things will change we'll see how. Chelsea's domestic following is bigger than you make it out to be.
But I haven't said we are. Merely that there's no guarantee that we'll have to regress to the mean because Arsenal have some reason not to. All clubs have to start somewhere. And we're hardly starting from scratch.
Ahem... back on track... Yes, I saw this. I think Baptista's agent has knocked some sense into him. It does make sense for him to aquire an EU passport, so that he'll be a more inviting prospect to Spanish sides (Players without the EU status keep getting thrown aside as the big clubs annually bring in the hottest new Brazillian and Argie talents: Riquelme's and Saviola's loan spells, Robinho's failed January transfer to Madrid). I'm surprised that Barca would take him, seeing as surely their 3 non-EU spots are occupied by 3 out of Ronaldinho, Marquez, Motta, Belleti, Eto'o, Maxi Lopez, Messi and Edmilson. There was talk of Messi going on loan to Rangers.... Anyway, that's Barca's problem. Eventually they'd happily see one or two of their less established youngsters go out on loan as Baptista gets his passport in this next season. Eventually having a EU passport also eliminates the Work Permit issues should a move to England ever be on the cards. As good a player as he is, playing in 75% of Brazil's internationals isn't easy to do. All in all, it's sensible for him to either stick at Sevilla for one more year before making the England switch, or move to barca.
Sure... Your logic seems to be getting a bit circular at this point, and since we're already far enough off topic, I'll just let that be the last post in here regarding the topic of what makes a big club.
LOL - this thread is hillarious... all the time spent arguing about what makes a club big... let Nicephoras prove that Chelsea is a big club or that they will be successful post-Amabigrussianbitch, the burden of proof lays with him... no one needs to be told, no one with brains atleast, that United and Liverpool, Juve and Milan, Real and Barca etc are big clubs... WE ALL KNOW THAT...
Well, Baptista wisely decided to go to Real Madrid, I wonder if MU plans to at least approach Ballack regarding possible transfer.
I believe Ballack will stay w/ Bayern. If he leaves Germany to go abroad then Italy's Serie A would be the most likely destination not England.
IF we are going to get him, we should get him now not in January when he will be cup-tied. I wouldn't even want him at that point, plus hopefully Scholes will be able to prove himself as a renew goal-scoring force by then.
That's a whole other topic. Let's hope you're right. Scholes down season last year was detrimental to ManU.
Around New Years we'll here that Ballack is locked up in a hotel room in London fearing for the lives of his family members......