Some that come to mind are "they dont deserve to win" When a team wins by parking the bus or "is he supposed to cut his hands off" whenever a handball is given.
' Its joga bonito time ' or 'get ready for a samba supershow' .. everytime the bbc or itv are showing a brazil game..
How about "2-0 is the most dangerous lead"? What a ridiculous cliche. By that logic, you would never want to push for a second goal and if you accidently got one, the best thing to do would be to knock in an OG to get your side to a "less dangerous" one-goal lead of 2-1
there is a lot of truth in this statement and actually, you are interpreting it the wrong way. obviously its better to be 2 goals ahead than 1. when a team is one goal ahead, you know that you are not safe, so the mentality of a team often does not go down and players continue to play with the same effort. the problem is that when teams are 2-0 up, you think you are safe but you are actually not. for this reason, you see teams often not putting effort defensively, teams tend to not mark as tightly, and teams are not as attack minded to finish off the game, whereas a 4 or 5 goal lead would ensure victory. When you are only 2 goals up and the other team scores one goal, now the team only needs one more goal, and usually when you have entered into a zone of not putting effort after being 2 goals up, it can be very difficult to get back into the rhythm of things, thus the other teams gains momentum with only needing one goal to tie the game.
The post above aside, I do understand that a two-goal is a dangerous lead for the reasons you mentioned but the cliche is that is that "it's the most dangerous lead"...don't know about you but I've been on the losing end after some one-goal leads, but very rarely two. is two "dangerous"? Sure. Is it "the most dangerous"? No
"There are no easy games or small teams". Are you telling me the game involving Barca/Madrid vs. Malmö/Plzen is 50/50!!!
We're going to take this season one game at a time, because I'm just ready to do anything I can to help the team, by staying within myself and trusting in the abilities of my teammates; because that's the name of the game.
Games being called "must-win" when there are still like 20 matches left in a season. Then the team loses and a couple weeks later they play another so-called "must-win" match. I think that one is sort of true for a 38-match league campaign. Obviously not true though for cup competitions, Champions League and other tournaments that are decided by just a few matches.
Another annoying one: "that's why you have a defender guarding the post" every time a goal line clearance is made off a corner-kick. No commentator has ever once criticized or even brought-up the potential downside of using that strategy (i.e. leaving a player open in the box because you've burned two defenders to guard the posts), not even after a goal is conceded. What other strategy in football, sport or life in general is not even questioned when it completely backfires?
Mine is not so much a cliche. I can't stand when a commentator or analyst says something like "So and so has not defeated so and so in 10 years" than you look in to it deeper and find out they have only played 3 times in that span. Why don't they just say "they have not defeated so and so in their last 5 matches" I get it adds to the dramatics, but it is often very deceitful.
Yes, absolutely. Recent example: "France haven beaten Germany in 58 years in a competitive game". What they didn't say is, that in that timespan, they met only four times! 1958, 1982, 1986, 2014!
Is there any evidence to suggest this? Bad decisions will tend to be random, or (tinfoil hat on) favour the bigger team. I'm willing to bet that the likes of Real, Barca, Bayern, Juve, Man Utd etc get more decisions in their favour than against them.
I do think that's true. I've even noticed it in season's where Reading are doing well - we'll get the benefit of the doubt more often, but I do think perhaps the amount of controversial decisions that go the way of the big clubs is perhaps exaggerated. We remember those moments, and forget the ones that don't go their way. Mind you, I do think that Mourinho and SAF turned putting pressure on referees pre-match into an art form, letting the ref know he'd be under huge scrutiny if anything controversial went against their team.
The equally stupid one that goes along with this is "The table never lies" as if there can be no randomness over 38 games or that luck goes out of the window.
"He's not that kind of player, he would never intentionally go out to hurt another professional" There are enough psychos on the field for us to know this is not true
Potentially or possibly the idea that footballers are financially secure for their entire life - with regards to retired footballers at least. In American team sports the salaries tend to be (even) more extreme - even for 'mediocre' players - and there we see: The corporate executives and sports administrators meanwhile... Some are 'lucky' to receive a 'booster rocket' after their career ends by becoming a 'brand ambassador' for the rest of their life.
Which echoes with football as well: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...arthritis-reality-retirement-footballers.html Not all that surprising given the way in which some of them live. If you get used to earning £5m a year and spend everything you earn then once the money tap dries up you are going to fall short. Footballers also seem to have a habit of making particularly poor investments.
That isn't true for NFL players though. Average career is about 3 years long, with minimum salary in the neighborhood of $250-300k. Still a lot, but expenses are probably high too and after taxes that's probably a grand total of about $500k after 3 years (when the average player retires).
That is right. For NFL players the career is 3.5 years long. The average salary $2.1 million, which is per annum not too bad. That is the lowest of all professional leagues in the United States (NBA average is $6.7 million, MLB $4.2 million), but higher than every association football league except the Premier League (average of 1.7 million pounds, which is some way ahead of the rest). However, there are 32 NFL teams with each having a roster of 53 men so it is of course not comparing like for like. On the '32 x 53' is the average wage number based at least, as well as the average career length number. There's also the endorsements side of things of course (player appeal + market size) but other than that I think the general idea of no-so-firm financial security is worth a thought. Mike Tyson collected over 300 million in his career (net worth at his peak), then was 10 years later bankrupt.
I tried to find it for Premier League players (best paid and most physical league with most contact injuries) but all I can find is an average career length of just under 8 years per PFA (including lower leagues).
At least on a psychological level that is very likely the case. For example: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...-big-clubs-Yes-dont-know-theyre-doing-it.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...England-referees-lifts-lid-culture-gifts.html There are also many studies and pdfs about this. There's much, much more than that around but that comes before 'we' start to talk about the material interests like the ones mentioned here. http://www.espnfc.com/blog/marcotti...ructural-changes-as-explained-by-gab-marcotti
The worst cliché in football for me, is by far (and I honestly can't find a more apt word for it): European snobbery, that is, the arrogant and self-serving belief that the Euro is so much superior as compared to the "joke" Copa America, that a TEAM ACHIEVEMENT somehow inherently becomes irrefutable evidence of how much better Zidane's Euro 2000 and Platini's Euro 1984 and Van Basten's Euro 1988, were when directly compared to Rivaldo's Copa 1999 or Ronaldo's Copa 1997 or Riquelme's Copa 2007, etc. Of course, the problem with said cliché is that it assumes or defines the difficulty of the TEAM ACHIEVEMENT itself, as an inherently "relative" or "rational" or "consistent" measurement for the difficulty of the INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENTS by X or Y players. However, the truth is that the Euro historically is not an uniquely nor distinctly difficult tournament in terms of "individual difficulty." Platini, Van Basten, Gullit, Zidane, Figo, Henry, Totti, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ibrahimovic, Xavi, Iniesta -- have all been clearly better at the "only difficult European teams, from beginning to end" Euro, than they have been at the "a lot of weak teams prior to the Quarter Finals" World Cup. (And it isn't unrealistic at all, to argue that Johan Cruijff and Eusebio would also be a part of that distinguished list, had they ever played the Euro in its post-1992 format. Same also applies to Michael Laudrup, Roberto Baggio, and Gheorghe Hagi, I'd argue.) On the other hand, the Copa America has consistently proven to be a relatively difficult tournament for individual players; the tournament is routinely won by Brazil, Argentina (a team that hasn't won it since 1993), or Uruguay (albeit that has now changed with Chile, some would argue), and so it obviously isn't as difficult as the Euro as a TEAM ACHIEVEMENT; but nevertheless, the Copa America has historically or consistently proven to be a difficult tournament for the "star players" of the big teams -- Maradona was clearly better at World Cup 1986 and 1990, than he was at any of his Copa Americas; same goes for Zico, Socrates, Romario, Bebeto, Dunga, Redondo, Diego Forlan, Neymar (so far), James Rodriguez (so far), Alexis Sanchez (so far), etc. Valderrama was about the same at Copa or World Cup; Batistuta was slightly better at the Copa, than at the World Cup; Rivaldo was about the same at Copa or World Cup; Ronaldo was slightly better at the Copa than at the World Cup, but only by the smallest of margins (if at all, because Ronaldo's Copa 1999 was his weakest NT tournament, by far); Riquelme was about the same at Copa or World Cup; Ronaldinho was better at the World Cup, than at the Copa; Kaka never actually played the Copa (if I'm not mistaken); Messi was about the same at Copa or World Cup; etc. The "Copa America is a joke" argument is not based on fact; yes, as a TEAM ACHIEVEMENT it definitely and obviously isn't as competitive/difficult as the Euro, but the Copa America has historically proven to be a difficult tournament for INDIVIDUAL PLAYERS, because the "joke" South American teams historically tend to focus most of their energy in stopping Maradona/Zico, and because the "mickey mouse" South American teams actually were familiar with Maradona and with Zico (which always invariably helps a great deal when you want to nullify said individuals), which ultimately and unequivocally makes individual performances more difficult or of equal difficulty when compared to the World Cup; a tournament where teams like England, Germany, Spain, France, Netherlands, traditionally care much more about their own game, than about employing "anti-football" against Maradona or other such individuals. (Italy arguably stands out as the single European Power, that invested most of their energy doing essentially the same thing that "joke" South Americans did.) On the other hand, the Euro has a fairly rich history of "players who were clearly better at the Euro, as compared to their World Cup exploits." A well documented, fairly rich history of exactly that. Basically, the Euro is an irrefutable argument for the fact that the difficulty of the team result itself, shouldn't ever be used as a "relative" or "logical" or "consistent" measure for the difficulty of the individual performances themselves. Case in point: Zidane was relatively mediocre in the Final of Euro 2000, but France won that game, and so Totti wasn't crowned as the player of the tournament after having created two clear chances for Del Piero in just the second half of the game. Had Italy won the Final, and had Del Piero converted just one of his two chances -- it would've then been highly probable that Totti would've been recognized as the Golden Ball of the tournament. And so, essentially, the team result itself ultimately defined the individual results themselves, which is a fallacy, but which is the modus operandi of the powers that be. Of course, European snobs just cannot help themselves, when they readily act as though "Kaka didn't even ever played the Copa, which proves just how big of a joke the Copa is" (when in fact, players who were better than Kaka ever was at the World Cup, never quite "dominated" nor "destroyed" the Copa; but of course, facts will never stop snobs from being self-serving dishonest fanboys). And of course, the argument above will be readily disregarded on the basis of "Europeans take the Euro seriously, which is why so many Europeans have been better at the Euro, than at the World Cup. On the other hand, the Copa is a joke, which is why Brazil so often plays with B teams..." Yep, that totally explains why such a big portion of the European legends were better at the Euro than at the World Cup. Worst cliché ever. It's not even remotely a contest for me.