I liked AEG from him time at Ajax. Seems like a pretty nice kid and was decent enough at club level. I am just not so sure that he will manage to earn a call up in the Dutch senior team anytime soon. Hopefully I am proven wrong! I think he's falling into a no-man's land, position-wise. He is not fast enough for a winger, yet not deadly enough to become a full-time striker. The winger position is fully loaded. This is probably the most stacked as it's ever been in recent memory. So many talents in the pipeline who are just scratching the surface and will eventually blossom.... Bergwijn, Dilrosun, Danjuma, Kluivert, Stengs, Malen and Van Bergen. Any of these youngsters can make a compelling argument for their inclusion. And they are on top of the established players like Memphis, Promes and Berghuis. Two or three will probably fade out (injuries, being in the wrong club at the wrong time, etc.) - but still plenty of options to consider. Maybe AEG can compete for the striker position. If he starts banging goals left and right, he will get noticed. Though, ironically, the 18 goals that Weghorst scored this season only got him to a provisional squad.
In this context then babel is no different to him. He is also not a very fast winger and neither he is a clincal finisher. I remember reading about Babel in an article. It said 4-4-2 formation was where he was absolute lethal. I think this was when he was at liverpool. It suits these type of players.
Yep correct. Can probably put also Lens in the same boat. Both players were/are really struggling to make transition from winger to striker, and end up not excelling in neither position (unlike Thierry Henry, or this mythical legend once I heard named Robin Van Persie ) It's impressive, and mind boggling at the same time, that Babel clocked in 50+ caps with the Dutch Senior NT. That's a pretty darn accomplishment for such a limited player. I suppose his early years under Van Basten were quite fruitful.
Only that he was picked by van Basten for the 2006 WC team. I just looked on Babel's Wikipedia page and he has only scored 8 goals for the NT and only two of those were in competitions, the others were all friendlies.
My local city soccer (football) team, FC Cincinnati, just hired a Dutchman to be the GM... Gerard Nijkamp. Never heard of him before, a little research tells me that he moved from PEC Zwolle. A quote I saw this morning... "For Nijkamp, it's a big jump from PEC Zwolle, where the MAC³PARK Stadion held about 12,500 supporters, to FC Cincinnati, MLS and the 32,250-seat Nippert Stadium on the University of Cincinnati campus." FC Cincinnati was just admitted to MLS last year, which is the highest professional soccer league in the U.S. They have been doing stellar.... not! Maybe there will be some total football to be had here for FC Cincinnati in coming months. Incidentally, their standard colors are orange & blue, that's a good start
In MLS they dont have the relegation/promotion systems we have in European football, correct?? So how does a new team enter the MLS then??
Well, MLS is an expansion mode right now... so there are only adding teams. Today the league has 24 teams, FC Cincinnati was the latest addition last year. The goal is to have 30 teams by 2020 maybe? There are criteria for the cities/teams that include the availability of a stadium, the size of the market and fan base, and obviously the financial commitment from the team's owner. For the city of Cincinnati it's been very controversial decision to join the league. Fan base was seemingly never an issue (a lot of German heritage here so passion for soccer is never lacking - and the city is growing economically speaking, so it attracts new population year over year). The heartburn was/is around the fact that the city needs to build a brand new soccer stadium (currently they are borrowing a university's soccer field). Building a stadium requires taxpayer's money and there is a lot dispute what part of town the stadium should be located. To make it complicated, the FC Cincinnati is doing so poorly since joining the league, so frustration is growing that eventually resulted in sacking of the head coach and entire management team. Hence, a new GM now
MLS has expanded much too fast and there is a lot of mediocre players. I've been going to local professional matches ever since I moved down to the DC area in 1978 and even saw Johan Cruyff in action when he played for the DC team in the old North American Soccer league. Our team, DC United was very strong in the first decade of MLS when there were fewer teams and players were not moving to Europe. Now there is too much emphasis on getting 'older' Euro players who are past their prime. Even then they are still much better than the Americans.
Shithead van Hanegem has some remarks about Klopp and Pochettino. His remarks are a testimony of why I hated him getting the coaching role at Feyenoord. He has been a tremendous player, but as a coach I value him very low. His remarks in this column about the two CL final coaches examplifies that he has no clue what it means to be a top coach. I hated his time as a coach at Feyenoord as I saw highly talented players like Blinkers and Taument stagnate, because they were content in reaching Feyenoord 1 and stopped putting in efforts becoming better. That's a glaring difference between these two CL coaches and nitwit van Hanegem. Klopp improves players like Wijnaldum. You, WvH didnot anything like that with our talents. https://www.ad.nl/home/het-toneelspel-van-jurgen-klopp~aa9dce60/ Het toneelspel van Jürgen Klopp ColumnColumnist Willem van Hanegem was zaterdagavond niet onder de indruk van Jürgen Klopp en Mauricio Pochettino. ,,Ik hoop dat die jongens niet gaan denken dat ze onmisbaar zijn, want hun rol is echt te verwaarlozen.” Sportredactie 03-06-19, 07:50
Ever notice the best players almost always seem to make the worst coaches, and the worst players make for the best coaches?? It seems to be like that in all pro sports
He judges those two on one match, that according to multiple posts and paper reports was so bloody awfull I'm glad I missed it and save the time to see it afterwards. He's the not so funny version of those grumpy old men from the Muppets show.
Average players cannot make up for mistakes because they don't have the athletic ability to do so. they have to understand the game much better and anticipate things. Cruyff is one exception to this, great player and great manager.
Cruyff was an exception for sure, Guardiola probably also. But those managers are the exception to the rule
Every now and then I go over and look at the Juventus forum. They don't seem to realize that it doesn't matter who they bring in to replace Alegri, most of their players are either too old or too slow to compete in Europe. They really need to overhaul the whole club and especially the MF as Ajax showed them. Ronaldo maybe has one more season at a high level.
Roda JC got a new owner: https://www.ad.nl/nederlands-voetba...-koempelmentaliteit-moet-terugkomen~aaf0a805/
Another example of Non top 3 Eredivisie clubs, in this case Willem II, being watched by the superclubs: https://www.sport.es/es/noticias/barca/barca-ajax-psv-por-palacios-7492008 Barça, Ajax y PSV, a por Palacios El FC Barcelona quiere a Palacios El jugador es también pretendido por el Ajax y por el PSV Eindhoven https://www.ad.nl/transfer-talk/barca-ajax-en-psv-azen-op-palacios-maguire-wil-naar-city~a1a1fd66/
Im not sure if hazard to real make any sense. They already have isco, asensio and raising star vinicius jrn in their ranks. Somebody will be deemed surplus there now.
It surprising how quickly Isco has fallen out of favor though maybe Zidane fancies him, we'll see. they really need to off load Bale but I don't think there is any team that wants a 29 year old winger with such a high salary and Bale has said he is not leaving. I don't know where Madrid comes up with all this money to sign players.