Indeed. We have many things we can say to belittle their history. And I implied above that today's victory might have ironic overtones of their "deficiencies". But that won't stop them from crowing and signing about the accomplishment. Especially when they play us. But you're right we need to be ready with a good retort when that happens.
I didn’t watch a minute. But I just looked at the stats, what happened to Ange’s “beautiful football”? Sp*rs were outshot 16 to 3 and had 27% possession.
To switch gears . . . finally looked at the upcoming Club World Cup happened here next month. What a steaming pile of dogshit. Too many matches, too many teams, too long a tourney. Red Bull Salzburg? what?!?!
They’re putting matches down here in Cincy. BvB and Bayern, I guess thanks to our German heritage (?), and Salzburg because close enough. Between them they’ll play (checks notes) Auckland, Pachuca, Mamelodi Sundowns and Ulsan HD. No, I’d never heard of the latter two. Can’t wait for no one to show up at these matches and have Cincinnati get written off for future actual matches. At least they’re playing these in the soccer stadium and not trying to fill a 65k seater.
No way Ange will stay as manager. His team would get blown out in CL and fight for relegation in PL. They could like string 3 passes together yesterday and were painful to watch.
I like this tittle from So Foot a French football magazine. Tottenham vainc l’ennui et s'offre la Ligue Europa (Tottenham beats boredom and gets the the EL)
They sat off a bit but went for counters when they could, shithoused a goal right on HT and then parked the Mou-Bus. Was a hard watch. Reminded me of a preseason match in Asia or Australia.
Remembered back in 2020 when we were sitting in 8th place and won the FA cup. We said a trophy is a trophy. This one hurts. And it’s a Europa league trophy. We had the opportunity to get two times but couldn’t. Spurs are terrible, but still going to be a long summer
It was a different tournament. I'm fairly certain we lost to teams that dropped out of the CL each time.
Yes as to Atleti, no as to Chelsea. The latter I had to look up, as I also assumed they had parachuted down, but they hadn't. Nevertheless.....still a huge money bags team. Also, not that I think he would have been a game changer, but it's ridiculous when you recall one of our better attackers at the time, Mkhitaryan, couldn't even travel because of "political" reasons.
After being denied in European and domestic tournaments as well as the league, Pep can win his annual Trophy. I just looked at the schedule, it’s a month long tournament. If a team makes it to the final they have 7 games in a month. Depending on how far a team goes, they will have 4 to 6 weeks before league games start. I’m pulling for a City vs Chelsea final. Their players will get a minimal break between the final and preparation for the start of the new season? Maybe one week, maybe two. In a World Cup summer not every player on a club team will make the final, so you can give those players a little extra time off. If a club team makes the final, they don’t have any leeway for extra rest for their players. This is insane.
Salzburg got in as the 9th best UEFA coefficient team, and only then because there is a cap of 2 clubs per nation because they are currently ranked 44th. Chelsea get in because they won the CL 4 years ago when they had a completely different squad. Inter Miami got in because they have Messi. 32 clubs is way too many with too many matches as @casoccerdad47 said, but when the main purpose of the tournament is a cash grab, Fifa gonna Fifa.
Thing is, they were in the Europa League because they weren't good enough to qualify for better. Would be like Leeds trying to flex on us because they got a trophy for winning the Championship while we didn't get a trophy for 2nd place in the EPL.