Nico saves the day after a shocking couple of minutes where Barca tried to give the game away... I know he's legend and all that, but Xavi is not inspiring a lot of confidence just yet. Only good news for Barca is Athletico falling apart atm, which at least keeps 4-7 pretty tight. It wouldn't take much of a run of wins for Barca to be back in the money... or much of a run of losses/ties to be well out. Points against Sevilla on Tues would go a loooong way to getting them back to respectable. They'd jump Rayo and Real Soc with a 2 goal win and would force Athletico to stop the slide to get back to to 4th.
Best XI: ❗| The CIES Football Observatory has presented the ideal XI of La Liga (this season). 6 Real Madrid players. ⚪ pic.twitter.com/krYPNk0jqG— Madrid Xtra (@MadridXtra) December 20, 2021
I was curious so I spent a couple minutes looking into it. It seems to be some kind of purely stats-based ranking. According to the website of the center that did the rankings: Players were selected according to the CIES Performance Index powered by Opta data. So it's based on some algorithmic crunching of statistics. Not completely worthless by any means, but for sure not the entire picture.
Xavi compliments the Sevilla coach as one of the best. RECALL SEVILLA COACH WANTED THE USMNT JOB BUT USSF DID NOT EVEN INTERVIEW HIM. "You can look at Bayern (Munich), they are playing great, but I what I like about Sevilla is how they work, their coach (Julen Lopetegui) is one of the best, they also have Monchi (sports director). Sevilla should be an example for us."
Wasn't the rumor of Lopetegui wanting to coach the USMNT disproved already? https://www.espn.com/soccer/united-...by-ex-real-madrid-coach-julen-lopetegui-agent
Let's hope this is true - the Dest to Bayern rumors continue to hang around. 🚨🚨[ @gerardromero🥇] | Bayern Munich are interested in Sergiño Dest. #fcblive #Transfers pic.twitter.com/SY7qg2nrC2— BarçaTimes (@BarcaTimes) December 20, 2021
if barca really were offered 45 million for dest last time around and turned it down i can guarantee you that now they are near financial ruin bayerns offer wont be no 45 million. bayern didnt become bayern by being idiots. i am sure they would take dest, but they are going to require a discount on the discount too
He's out, club already confirmed it yesterday when they announced their preliminary squad list and Xavi was addressing it in his press conference earlier in the day.
There will be a market. They'll have to pay close to what someone else will pay to win. However, there aren't that many clubs with +/- 45 million to spend on a right back that don't already have a great one. Personally, I care absolutely none what the transfer fee is, I just want to see him on the best club that will play him.
Dest is still injured, so he may play again once he's back. Spain is becoming a black hole for our guys: Miazga, Hoppe, Dest not playing and Musah nearly there.
Honestly, I doubt it. Xavi was pretty clear in his press conference comments that the only reason Dest hasn't played much is due to the injuries. All of the unsourced articles that are popping up about Barca wanting to offload him, that Xavi think he's a bad player, that he publicly humiliated him at some point, etc. etc. remind me of the similar stories that were coming out about McKennie a few months ago. I tend to take the coach's statements at face value more than unsourced rumors. Also practically speaking, Barca's first game of 2022 is already on Jan. 2, then they have an utterly ridiculous schedule of 6-7 games (depending on whether they win their Supercoppa de España semi over in Saudi Arabia) over 21 days, plus a likely makeup Copa del Rey game in the same timeframe. Transfers like this rarely happen as soon as the window opens so even if Bayern made a play (I'm not convinced), I would expect it to take a few days/weeks to happen, during which point he still belongs to Barca as they are going through a murderers' row of games.
Stupid reports that Barcelona wants to sell Dest in January to pay for other acquisitions. That would be a bad move for Barca IMO They are a super young all along the line, but super talented...they should stay that way and develop a super club for next season (and forget this year's) vs. trying to create something now. It is too early for their young talent to hit their marks in next 7 months...but after that woa.... It is a stupid report if true, because they will be selling him at a massive discount. Bayern is the reported interested suitor and would represent another great arbitrage play by BM, if true. BM, I think, is best run club in the world.
Bayern is run like Microsoft in the 00s: embrace, extend, and extinguish. They buy key players from any team getting too close right before the league gets interesting. They're so well run they're going to break the system. As is, the Bundesliga is having trouble finding broadcasters in Asia (one of the biggest markets) because of Bayern's dominance. Asians like to watch leagues where the winner is not known on the first day. The numbers in India (for example) dropped to the point where Star Sports had to drop them last year.
Nice guess....but no. It originated from a very old (originally published in syndication in 1996) Life in Hell comic from Matt Groening - one of the "Akbar & Jeff" ones where an inane argument ends with them touching fingers and saying "Krelm" & "Wuzzle". How that became "krelmatrix" is too long & meandering of a story for the Dest thread.
yeah, the BL is less interesting every year because there is no real competition at the top. I hope Dest stays at Barca and is part of the rebuild. No reason to think he won’t survive there as he has the skills and desire. He can improve in the finer points of tactics and defending over the coming months, years. He is really an exciting player and Barca is better off with him.
The most important thing for Dest at the moment is to be someplace where he learns some tactical discipline. He has all the raw tools, the better he learns to play in sophisticated, consistent set-ups the better for him long term. In a perfect world he goes to a tactically sophisticated and somewhat stable coach/team - but those gigs are relatively few and far between in footie.
Also, two rich places in Asia are Hong Kong and Singapore, they tends to watch EPL more than other league.