A Beautiful Thread for the Beautiful Game

(In French) Brexit might force many French players to leave the Premier League for visa reasons.

ff you are not part of the EU, then you have to treat EU players as foreigners, who need a working visa to play, and it recently became much more difficult to get one. Cabaye, Martial, Kanté, Mangala or Schneiderlin might be forced to leave because they would not be eligible to that visa due to not getting enough international selections in the last two years.

They also mention that a Dimitar Berbatov would simply be unable to play in the Premier League due to Bulgaria being ranked over 50th in the FIFA rankings.

Nevermind Bulgaria's ranking. Why would anybody in the Premier League be in the market for a striker who'd be pushing 36 by the start of the coming season, anyway? Granted, Drogba made his one-year return to Chelsea at age 36, but he made nowhere near the same impact that he had on the pitch when he was in the EPL previously, and he had largely no affect on Chelsea winning an EPL title that year, apart from maybe boosting team morale off the pitch. I wouldn't even expect Berbatov to be that effective, if he'd return to Man U.

In much lighter news, I finally found an "online video interview" with a more awkward moment than Arsene Wenger being asked about his "favorite video game" and it's this entire video:

Let's be clear now: Frank Lampard is afraid of heights, but if he could possess a superpower, it would be FLIGHT. Somebody call up Disney/Marvel or Zack Snyder and greenlight the Super Frank movie stat! We've found a hero with a more crippling weakness than kryptonite who can only hover a few feet off the ground. It'll rake in more money than Ant-Man and Deadpool combined!

And his "favorite sports team other than NYCFC" is... most every other New York sports team. No love left for Chelsea. Damn.

I would've expected him to name Chelsea or West Ham rather than any New York club, to be sure. But that video is obviously just not at all serious, as will all such pseudo-interviews with questions that barely qualify as questions, so I don't expect he thought about those answers at all. They may even have been scripted by the club or his agent or who knows who.

Brexit is going to have an impact on UK football. Players coming to the UK from the EU will have an additional obstacle to overcome (just like non-EU players do now), and I think the most significant outcome of that will be that UK-based clubs will not be able to recruit youth players from EU countries like they used to do. That will mean better opportunities for players already in the UK, but it will also put UK-based clubs at a disadvantage in training elite players through their academy when competing with EU-based clubs.

Then whoever scripted those answers about loving Phil Collins, seeing U2 at his first concert, and wanting to become a lawyer after watching LA Law is a mad, Patrick Bateman-loving, genius and deserves immense credit for crafting such a disturbingly bland personality for another person to adopt as his own for the sake of adding content to an MLS club's YouTube channel. That writer has so much more to offer the world.

Alright, so not all of it would've been scripted. I'm just suspicious about the stuff that directly promotes his current club and appears designed to sell him to his new audience.

I'm just about certain that there's no professional football player who became a legend at one Premier League club after breaking through at another and thought that the most interesting sports clubs in the world, other than the football club in US where they're currently employed, are unrelated sports clubs in the same city. Either he or his agent or someone like that decided that that interview - if you can call it that - was an opportunity to sell him specifically to fans in New York.

If he had signed for a club in the UAE he would've talked about how he's always been following sports clubs there.

Fairly late news, but with the whole UK controversy I didn't want to interrupt anything. Lionel Messi called AFA a "disaster" because of the poor logistics regarding the schedules of the transport of the Argentina national team. You know how fucked up AFA have become when their number-one player calls them a disaster.

The only New York team he mentioned that's totally obvious in that sort of way is the Yankees, who are part-owners of NYCFC with Manchester City and who let Lampard's current club use their stadium for home games. Nevertheless, I don't doubt that Frank (and other high-profile NYCFC players) has been to a couple baseball games at the same grounds where he now plays, has watched other big, local teams at MSG and elsewhere in the city on just as many occasions, and casually follows the rest of the local sports news in passing. And I don't question that watching any of the other local teams has left a positive impression on him, as weird as it still sounds to hear a topic like that come up and not see Frank reflect on his personal history as a professional footballer in England.

I haven't heard anything about this, but I would be interested to hear more, if he's actually made specific complaints known about poor planning and/or travel arrangements.

Anyway, I'll list my Euro Round of 16 "winning" picks and take my chances:

• Poland
• Portugal
• Wales
• Hungary
• Germany
• Spain
• Ireland
• England

edited 24th Jun '16 10:11:02 PM by SeanMurrayI

Here, two sources.

We're positive he didn't mean the FAA (or one of its subdivisions, in any case) and he just accidentally hit the letter keys in the wrong order? He's seriously holding the AFA responsible for inclement weather and air traffic control delaying their plane taking off? Weather delays have never held up a plane before in the past decade-plus he's spent as a football player—not even when traveling all over Europe in the Champions League?

Problem is, in the most recent conference he did confirm he meant AFA. I'd give you sources, but all of the ones I'm seeing are in Spanish. Just in case, here's one of 'em anyway.

"This is not a recent thing, since quite long [certain] things keep happening. What I said yesterday was because I felt it that way. I would like AFA to give the national team what they need, it's a world [football] power. Too many and accumulating are the [problematic] things as of now. We need to change, not just for ourselves, but also for the ones coming from behind."

"Maybe I chose the wrong moment [to make that comment] due to how close we're getting to the end. The delay, having to wait. It's no time to give away anything. It annoyed me that the same thing got to happen again. I could comment on AFA's response [on my comment], but I prefer to leave it at that, we had to stay focused on the final match."

Messi also said that he could elaborate further on AFA's current political crisis after finishing the tournament, but not before, as he wants to think about the match only.

That Shaqiri goal. WOW.

A very strong contender for goal of the tournament. Unreal skill.

For those who haven't seen the match, here is said goal.

And 1-1. We're now going into extra time. 30 more minutes that could end up in a PK if the teams continue to attack like these last 10 minutes, considering they have lost some of the pace, as well as some mental focus.

I also find it odd that Poland hasn't made any substitutions so far.

EDIT: Ok, they finally made a substitution at the 11' of extra time.

edited 25th Jun '16 8:09:58 AM by Quag15

We're off to penalties.

And penalty shootout it is. I can see both Sommer and Fabianski making at least one save.

Xhaka misses by a wide margin.

Krychowiak scores the last one. 4-5 on penalties, Poland reach the quarter-finals for the first time!

edited 25th Jun '16 8:43:04 AM by Quag15

I will not do any jokes about Arsenal. It would be too easy.

Wales 1-0 Northern Ireland. Own goal by Gareth, after a cross by the more famous Gareth. Wales have reached the quarter-finals, as they did in their last major tournament (World Cup 1958).

Meanwhile, here's Portugal's starting XI. Nice to see Adrien, Cédric and Fonte getting some playing time, which will allow Ricardo Carvalho to rest. This means that the midfield will be Sporting CP + André Gomes. Also, Southampton fans will be watching two of their players in action.

Croatia's starting XI.

edited 25th Jun '16 11:03:01 AM by Quag15

Arsenal jokes stop being funny the FOURTH time you say them. =v

Anyway, something CONMEBOL has announced as a form of clarification is that, while the Copa Centenario will be considered an official title acknowledged by them, CONCACAF and FIFA, it's still a tourney of exceptional nature for being a Milestone Celebration, meaning that:

• Even if Chile loses in the final, they will still be the ones to represent South America in the 2017 Confederations Cup for being the winner of the latest regular edition (2015).
• Even if Chile loses in the final, they will still preserve the title mark given to the players' uniforms of the title holders until 2019, when they have to play the 2019 edition in Brazil.

Additionally, and this is to dispel the false assumption that Argentina can still go to the Conferedations Cup, there's no such way. It was said last year, after Argentina lost in the World Cup and Copa América finals, that if Germany won this year's UEFA Euro after having won in Brazil 2014, Argentina would take the vacant berth. That's not how it works, as the berth will instead go to the runner-up as it's still a UEFA berth.

edited 25th Jun '16 11:13:25 AM by MyFinalEdits

Croatia 0-0 Portugal in regular time. Extra time will follow.

We managed to break the link up plays by the Croatian midfielders for the most part, but our chances have been far and few in between and without accuracy. The Croatians have more possession.

EDIT: GOAAAAAL BY QUARESMA! YES!

edited 25th Jun '16 2:27:51 PM by Quag15

Croatia 0-1 Portugal

115 minutes - no shots on target

116 minutes - goal by Quaresma, after the Croatian GK defended Ronaldo's shot!

The last 5 minutes - A very Portuguese butt-clenching.

(sighs in relief)

And now we're gonna face Poland. After a great midfield, we're now gonna face one of the best defenses of this Euro.

edited 25th Jun '16 2:40:40 PM by Quag15

Good movement on the counter-attack, and a poached goal to show for it.

Ronaldo (quiet for much of the game) running back to take the ball off Croatia and get that entire run of play moving brought back memories of his one act of brilliance in the World Cup to draw Portugal level with the US at the very end of the game.

edited 25th Jun '16 2:41:53 PM by SeanMurrayI

Agreed. Apart from that, he was fairly absent from this game (though then again, credit has to be given to Croatia's defense - they were also strong and focused, just like Portugal's defense in general).

MOTM for me was Pepe. He stopped so many occasions.

It was a good team strategy, indeed.

edited 25th Jun '16 2:48:45 PM by Quag15

It certainly looked really tense and damn lucky after Pepe was substituted...

edited 25th Jun '16 3:22:50 PM by SeanMurrayI

Congrats to Portugal. I gave up after 60 horrendous minutes. I can only stare at a screen without anything interesting happening for so long.

Wait, Pepe wasn't substituted. Are you confusing him with someone else (possibly João Mário, who was replaced by Quaresma)?

Fair enough. I usually am nervous during Portugal's matches in every competition, but even I yawned a couple of times during the match. In spite of this match being quite tactical.

edited 25th Jun '16 3:41:44 PM by Quag15

Pepe came off for Danilo (Dannilo?) during extra-time, before it looked like Portugal were going to concede a soft goal. His substitute, in particular, tripped up Patrício on a corner kick, which gave Croatia that wide-open net that they just didn't capitalize on.

edited 25th Jun '16 3:49:23 PM by SeanMurrayI