A Beautiful Thread for the Beautiful Game

In a FM game 10 years ago or so the pitch was divided into areas. I used to push the Left and Right players in a 4-4-2 forward a bit, half way between. It was effectively a 2 hex formation.

edited 30th Aug '14 11:08:03 AM by Last_Hussar

Chelsea beat Everton 6-3. Must've been one hell of a game.

I haven't really seen Cesc in Chelsea colours yet 'cause I've only watched Arsenal's games so far this season (and that will probably continue for a couple more weeks at least - when I'm home and settled I'll expand to watching other games, as well.)

To be honest it does distress me to think that a manager as anti-Cesc as Mourinho - and a club as anti-Arsenal as Chelsea - would become Cesc's manager and team, but Cesc tried to come to Arsenal and Wenger refused so what can you do. It's true that Arsenal didn't need him, but they didn't need Özil either but sometimes it's a good idea to buy a great player when presented with the opportunity. Cesc is very versatile, anyway, so I'm sure Arsenal could've found a use for him.

Cesc is basically the reason I became interested in Arsenal in the first place, and to me he's basically the essential Arsenal player, when it comes to playing style and quality. I'm not happy about how he forced his transfer to Barcelona, even though I understand his motives. I can also see that if Barcelona were selling him it was the best for him to think about his career and become a star in another club rather than a utility player at Barcelona. Still, in his shoes I would've stayed in Barcelona if they had promised to at least have me on the bench, waiting for an opportunity that didn't involve going to a rival of either of the teams that made him.

My club won 3-0 against Belenenses in their stadium. Basically, this is probably one of the best starts of a season I've ever witnessed in my life (3-1, 3-0, 0-3).

We have a team.

You too, huh?

HMFC 4 - 1 Falkirk. Top of the tree so far. 4 played, 4 won.

Nice! Congrats.

Problem is, next week we'll face Porto (who are more than motivated by the Champions group they have). I expect, at most, a draw (and it's in our stadium!).

edited 30th Aug '14 6:48:42 PM by Quag15

Ever since I started playing Football Manager my default formation is a 4-2-2-2. In FM 2014 terms that would be GK-DR-DC-DC-DL; MC-MC; AMR-AML; ST-ST. Of course the two MC's have different roles, as well as the two ST's.

So... transfer season is over, and we didn't buy a central striker. No Zapata, no Guidetti, no Dost.

I shudder at the thought of us playing Mitchell te Vrede in that position for the rest of the year. Sure, he may have scored in each of the last six games, but that's a lucky streak. He's no targetman; he screws up a lot of chances; and defenders can outrun or overpower him with relative ease.

We did buy Ajax's second goalkeeper, Kenneth Vermeer. He used to be their first goalkeeper, but he lost his place under the crossbar in Amsterdam to Jasper Cillessen a long time ago (I think it was a year and a half? Two years?) So from his perspective, the transfer is obviously a step forward: from benchwarmer at Ajax to first pick at Feyenoord, a club at roughly the same level.

From Feyenoord's perspective, though... I have my doubts. When questioned about Vermeer's transfer, our sporting director spoke harsh words about Erwin Mulder, who's been doing a perfectly adequate job (in my opinion, and that of many other fans) as our goalkeeper for quite some time. Mulder is a stable, reasonably competent goalie: you won't see a lot of stellar saves from him, but no embarrassing blunders, either. Vermeer is a much more irregular player: at his best he's certainly better than Mulder, but unfortunately we see him at his worst far too often, which is... pretty bad.

Plus, Feyenoord – Ajax is a blood rivalry. Transfers from one to the other are just not done.

Speaking of transfers and rivalries, Arsenal bought Danny Welbeck from Manchester United for £16 million. Presumably he's going to be a rotation option for the striking positions - something Arsenal will probably need, at least during Giroud's injury. I'm worried about Campbell and Podolski, but then again it's good to have depth and Sanogo hasn't been doing the job he should be doing at this level. £16 million is perhaps a bit more than he's worth but you always pay a lot for English players so...

International breaks suck.

That was great.

A less great thing: Finland are losing against the Faroes. Nevermind that Finland totally dominated the first 45 minutes, it only takes one defencive error from Moisander (of all people) to ruin the result.

At least it's only the first half...

Less surprising, Scotland are also losing against the Weltmeisters. Still, it's only 1-0 and we began the second half with a decent charge right at the Krauts. Come on.

1-1 Scotland! Fucking yes!

EDIT: And Mueller puts the Germans ahead again. Uh-oh. Looks like we've angered them

edited 7th Sep '14 1:14:55 PM by Achaemenid

When the match (Finland's) was about to start I told my girlfriend how happy I was that Kasper Hämäläinen would return to Finland's starting line-up; our manager doesn't use him nearly enough. As the game actually started it was revealed that Hämäläinen wouldn't start after all, having been replaced for some reason by Riku Riski. In the second half Riski has now scored twice, putting Finland 2-1 ahead.

I still wish Hämäläinen had started but obviously I've got to give credit to Paatelainen (the manager) for seeing that something in Riski. 2 goals is a fantastic result for a player that isn't really considered an automatic starter in the squad.

As I was writing this Eremenko scored a fantastic efford (I saw the replay). That should put the game beyond doubt, finally.

Guys guys guys.

The Indian Super League, perhaps one of the first big name football leagues here, is starting this year! I am super excited!

There's a lot of speculation as to participants and coaches and everything, but we just hope that this is the first step to a World Cup spot!

The big names coming, it seems, are all retired (but it's good money, I guess), but it's the only time we're likely to see people like David Trezeguet (player, FC Pune City), Zico (coach, Goa FC), Alessandro del Puerto (player, Delhi Dynamos) David James and Juan Capdevila (don't know, but players) here in India. (EDIT: Also Nicolas Anelka as a player for Mumbai) Most are most enthusiastic of Zico, considering his record with Japan and others.

So.. What do you guys think? I am just hoping it'll be great!

edited 8th Sep '14 1:50:03 AM by arcanephoenix

From what I've seen of India's project I think it seems quite similar to the stuff the US and Australia have been doing over the past couple of decades: start a league with some (preferably big) corporate support, attach some stars (whose careers are winding down) to the projected big teams in the league, and use that money and momentum to build the infrastructure form stadia to youth academies and all that. Over several decades you can build a league that produces local talent while also attracting foreign players who can bring their celebrity and talent, bringing in attention and investments from abroad while also inspiring local audiences to watch the game and hopefully learn to play it until you have kids dreaming about being a star in that country.

I think I heard something about Freddie Ljungberg coming back from retirement to play in India, but I can't help wondering if it's too late for that by now.

In any case, I wish India all the best and I really hope that the system they build up there will produce an interesting multi-level league structure where Indian kids will want to develop into national and international stars and have the opportunity to follow through. I wouldn't mind also having India be one of the leagues where European stars play the last couple of seasons of their career - even if they're paid loads I'm sure the boost from their fame and performance will bring a long-term benefit to the league in the form of new audiences and new generations of kids who want to emulate those stars.

I've seen Russia cited as an example of how to do this sort of thing right, but I can't really comment because I don't know how good Russia's league and FA were before they allegedly started looking for foreign stars and investors to boost their football. China has also been discussed recently as a country going through this, but of course they've had problems such as clubs not paying the players in time and all that. Hopefully India won't make the same mistakes.

It's obviously all about the $$$ in India. The Spanish players in our league come from La Liga Segunda teams at best, or those that played for even lower division clubs. Most of the foreign players in the UFL are Africans; there are Americans too, those who played in the NCAA but never went to MLS. Of course, the rest are locals or those with half-Filipino blood. There are also Koreans and Japanese and Iranians too.

edited 7th Sep '14 9:08:54 PM by entropy13

Well, I guess. When I saw the kind of names showing up, I thought primarily of how David Beckham played for LA Galaxy in the twilight of his career, and think this'll be something similar. If they don't mind, though, I don't either.

Still, large amounts have been poured into this and football isn't a game very conducive to advertising (a reason my brother-in-law gave as to why perhaps it isn't as popular in the US), but... Hell, if India qualify for Russia 2018 or Qatar 2022 (even though ideally everyone should boycott the thing, according to me), it could be worth it.

EDIT: Indian football, ladies and gentlemen!

edited 7th Sep '14 11:02:06 PM by arcanephoenix

Wow. Not even the Scottish Football Association are that screwed-up. And that organization has a long and storied global history for being screwed-up.

So, about last night's match against Albania:

A simple headline from one of the sports newspapers here sums it up: 'Shame'.

The absence of Ronaldo is not an excuse.

Gods alive, 1-0 to Albania?

As an Indian football fan, I am kinda used to defeats more than is perhaps healthy :/ but I thought you Europeans harboured greater hopes of winning.

Yeah, it was...unexpectably bad.

Only a few players (Moutinho, Coentrão and one or two younger ones) played decently. The rest were simply shit.

It was so bad that our fans waved their white handkerchiefs.

edited 8th Sep '14 6:10:14 AM by Quag15

Doublepost: Sepp Blatter confirms he will stand for fifth term as Fifa president.

Wonderful!

Fifa president Sepp Blatter wants to trial a TV referral system by 2015:

This will go over so well...

Hey, it worked in baseball.

But baseball is not a high-paced sport like football. There are way more stops and starts in it.

The thing that Blatter proposed would cause the matches to become boring with constant decisions having to be made.