A Beautiful Thread for the Beautiful Game

The thread has been fairly inactive, hasn't it?

Bayern Munich barely made it towards the next round in the DFB Pokal after a 1-1 draw against Leipzig that forced them to play penalty rounds. I really don't see how Heynckes will really be able to revitalize this increasingly-troubled team. I really don't see it.

Real Madrid is currently winning 0-1 against Fuenlabrada in Copa del Rey, but their footplay is really deplorable and painful to the eyes. That penalty granted to them is very, very dubious at best, and outright nonexistent at worst. This is why I had said in another comment that I was cautious about this match, because Madrid had previously flubbed against third-division teams in this competition. They will really need to buy new players for the upcoming transfer market, and sell some of the most disappointing ones they currently have.

Forgive me if I seem like I am in a bad mood. But lately I'm not feeling comfortable at watching football when the team I support is still in such a hard slump...

EDIT: AND AGAIN! Another dubious penalty for Madrid, and now Fuenlabrada has to play with only 10 men! I. Can't. Even.

edited 26th Oct '17 2:17:05 PM by MyFinalEdits

FIFA officially recognised all the champions of the Intercontinental Cup as club world champions, in equal status to the FIFA Club World Cup.

Here's the list of the winners and runners-up from that old Cup, in case anyone wants to check and/or remember.

edited 27th Oct '17 2:53:32 PM by Quag15

Saw that too some hours ago. Glad to hear that. And funnily enough, the resolve came at the request of CONMEBOL, as they (and many South American clubs and federations) have historically valued the importance of world-tier trophies much more than Europeans do (in fact, this news was barely talked about in the European press media; usually, an European club feels like they've already touched the heavens by winning the UEFA Champions League).

This also gives the oddity of year 2000 having had two world champions at the same time (Boca Juniors and Corinthians).

Now that I've mentioned Boca, they've announced that they will no longer allow cheerleaders to be present in their Bombonera stadium, as they want to support the cause of preventing objectification of women.

That last part sounds stupid.

Cheerleader is a shitty situation. You aren't paid much, you have to train a lot to stay fit, players and fans constantly hit on you and not always in cute or endearing ways, and your worker's rights tend to be next to nonexistant. I for one will not complain to see fewer of them.

On a happier note, England became the U-17 World Champion by beating Spain 5-2. Congrats to them, and I hope it becomes something positive for the adult team.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfadtDe9eVI

I guess it means you will have quality young players warming the PL benches or playing against Championship sides during National cups. Because English players will be far too expensive to play on foreign soil, and a number of teams would rather develop their own younglings than loaned ones anyway.

I'd suggest putting a limit of foreigner players on the field, but I doubt any Europe league would either accept it or even then, seriously enforce it. Still, they are wasting some perfectly good talent.

Apparently, Arsenal won 2-1 at home against Swansea. The goals were scored by Kolasinac and Ramsey, after Clucas had scored for Swansea.

I didn't see the game because I was at a party. I've only seen the highlights, so I don't know much about the game. I'm glad Arsenal won, and I'm sure it was a very close game because Swansea always make things difficult for Arsenal.

Girona 2 - 1 Real Madrid

Remember when Madrid cared about La Liga last season? They don't in this one.

Zidane is probably aiming for the CL now. There also seem to be some players who have become complacent.

Desportivo das Aves 1-3 Vitória SC

I didn't watch the match, but it seems that there was a case of Aves played fairly decent, but us being more efficient. In any case, Raphinha scored within the first five minutes (pass/assist by Héldon), which set the tone for the match. Aves equalized through a penalty, but Héldon scored near the end of the first half. In the second half, Rafael Martins scored the killing goal, proving once again that he's in good form (he scored in these last 4 games - Cup game, EL game, the two Liga games).

Highlights here. This win was necessary for keeping the hopes of reaching the 5th place alive, while at the same time lifting the morale for the incoming EL match against Marseille.

edited 29th Oct '17 3:44:08 PM by Quag15

Their current performance in the Liga is getting dangerously reminiscent of Mourinho's disastrous third year in Madrid, back in the 2012-13 exercise. By the time they lost so many points (namely the first two months of the competition), they started aiming at the UCL as a last resort, and when they were eliminated there the last thing they had left was the Copa del Rey. They went on to be defeated by Atletico in the Final, Mourinho then left the club and the team was left completely shattered and out of north.

I want to know why teams end up being so burnt out after winning so much.

Aaaaand Deschamps' contract now runs until 2020. Le Sigh. Two more years of uninspired plays that he will excuse by the youth of the team, until the players get past their prime and we realize that he was just not a good enough coach.

Contract renewals mean nothing. Zidane was renewed for 2020 as well and yet, as with any manager in a serious club, his continuity will be determined by whether or not he wins trophies, and which ones. It might happen that Deschamps is sacked if he flubs with the national team in the WC and Zidane reaches a "mutual agreement" of not continuing in Madrid (I'm doubtful Florentino will flat out say he'll sack Zidane because of the latter having become a Sacred Cow). Note how poorly Madrid is doing recently, then add the dubious footplay of France currently, and do the math.

Today's matches in the CL have ended. Let's take a look:

Group A: M United won 2-0 against Benfica (goals here, plus a penalty saved by promising (but unlucky, as you will see in one of the goals) GK Svilar, while Basel choked at home 1-2 against CSKA Moscow (goals here). With these results, M United only need a draw at Basel to secure both qualification and the top spot of the group, while Benfica is pretty much out of the European competitions (0 points in 4 matches!)

Group B: Celtic lost 1-2 at home against Bayern (goals here), while PSG comfortably destroyed Anderlecht by 5-0 (goals here, including a hat-trick by Kurzawa). With these results, both PSG and Bayern have already secured qualification, and will duke it out for the top spot.

Group C: Atletico Madrid will likely go to the Europa League, after drawing 1-1 with Qarabag (goals by Michel and Partey, plus a red card for Qarabag's Pedro Henrique and a second yellow for Atleti's Savic. Roma are now top of the group, after beating Chelsea by 3-0 goals here, including a brace by El Shaarawy.

Group D: Two draws. Olympiakos 0-0 Barcelona and Sporting 1-1 Juventus (goals here).

edited 31st Oct '17 3:01:35 PM by Quag15

Lanus 4 - 2 River Plate

Ouch

Between this, Madrid's slump and that Venezuela is as always out of the WC, perhaps I need to take a brief break from football. I just don't feel encouraged right now to continue watching matches if all that is left is disappointments of this kind.

Real Madrid won the Champions League and La Liga last season, but you're so discouraged by their recent form that you feel it's hard to keep watching?

I suppose that's how fans of smaller clubs feel when they see us Arsenal fans complain that we don't feel like watching the team in the slump it's in, but on a massively larger scale.

I mean, damn.

Fair enough. I guess it had to happen eventually anyway. And for the record, I'm also disappointed that Arsenal haven't been able to exploit all of their potential. There's a TV show about football critique in Argentina where one of the recurring panelists is a longtime Arsenal fan from Venezuela; he has expressed that Arsenal will always be the club of his life, but that Arsene has outrun his capacity to lead the team and should step down as a manager (he can still be paert of the administrative body, the panelist says). The other panelists find humor in his constant disappointments, but I can't help but pity him for the situation, because having to deal with seven consecutive years of your team flubbing in the UCL and then break the streak by having to play the UEL instead is way too much for a club that used to make history instead of studying it from the clubs that humiliate them.

Also, it's not just Madrid's slump that has me down. After that historical comeback against Wilstermann and having to struggle against accusations that their entire team was doped when only two players were, River Plate had everything in their favor to reach the Libertadores final and win it. With them out, it's going to be a Sudden Downer Ending for the succesful cycle of Marcelo Gallardo as their manager.

EDIT: "making history instead of sudying it from the clubs that humiliate you" is a surprisingly revealing quote that has just come from my mind, Even I am shocked.

edited 1st Nov '17 10:25:03 AM by MyFinalEdits

The other matches today in the CL have ended. Let's take a look:

Group E: Liverpool comfortably beat Maribor by 3-0 (goals here), while Sevilla won 2-1 against Spartak Moscow (goals here).

Group F: Shakhtar Donestsk beat Feyenoord by 3-1 (goals here), while Napoli lost 2-4 at home against Manchester City (goals here). Napoli's hopes of going through to the next round are pretty much over, so, Europa League it will be for them. Manchester City is already qualified.

Group G: Besiktas and Monaco drew 1-1 (goals here), while Porto won 3-1 against Red Bull Leipzig (goals here). Sérgio Conceição's tactics may be flawed, but the man sure knows how to motivate a team and its audience. With these results, Besiktas only needs a draw against Porto (who are now second) at home to secure qualification to the next round.

Group H: MyFinalEdits, I know you feel inclined towards a break. Still, Tottenham seemed to have played fairly well and won with relative ease. Tottenham won 3-1 against Real (goals here). They're the first English side to do so since Liverpool back in 2009.

Besides, both Real and Tottenham will go through to the next round (Tottenham is already qualified, Real only need a draw to secure it), since Dortmund and APOEL drew 1-1 (goals here). Dortmund is pretty much resigned to fighting with APOEL for the EL spot (both have the same amount of points: 2).

Btw, I'm going to deliver tomorrow's EL results later than usual, because... I'm gonna see my team live at the stadium (it's been a long time since I last went to the stadium), against Marseille. It's do or die, now.

edited 1st Nov '17 8:14:36 PM by Quag15

I hope you enjoy that match. And take care, one never knows with public events like sports matches these days...

Nooo, you shouldn't worry, what could possibly go wrong for a fan at a Marseille gam...

Forget I asked.

Apparently playing for both Marseille and Manchester during your career will lead to you high-kicking fans (and getting red-carded for that).

Except this bozo doesn't have a fraction of Cantona's talent, or charisma, or brains for that matter. That's like a horrible and pointless Hollywood remake. Don't expect a good sardine quote out of that.

edited 2nd Nov '17 1:49:36 PM by Julep

Arsenal 0 - 0 Red Star Belgrade at half-time.

Arsenal are palying a hybrid squad of youth team prospects augmented with first-team bench players:

Macey
Debuchy Elneny Holding
Nelson Coquelin Willock Maitland-Niles
Walcott Wilshere
Giroud

Macey has been the star of the game so far, making a couple of impressive saves. He did make one massive mistake, passing the ball directly to Red Star's most advanced forward instead of clearing it, but other than that, he's looked decent. He's 23 and this is only his second competitive game for Arsenal, having made his debut against Norwich in the League Cup.

Both teams have had a number of players receive treatment on the pitch, and there have been some slips and collisions that make one question the quality of the pitch - but usually, the Emirates has the best pitch in England, so maybe there's just too much (or too little) water on it or something.

Red Star's counter-attacks are very dangerous. Arsenal, in contract, are holding the ball and passing it along, but mostly horizontally, and the final, penetrating through ball almost invariably fails to reach its target because there are so many defenders on the way.

I'd like to see more crosses from the flanks; Giroud in able to beat a defender for those, and he can produce something if the ball ends up bouncing in the area or something like that.

Instead, Arsenal's through ball are along the ground and from almost directly behind the main striker, when the midfielders or forwards are frustrated at how many times they've had to pass horizontally.

Arsenal's counter-attacks look decent going in, but eventually the ball always seems to end up in the hands of someone like Coquelin or Reine-Adelaide, who don't quite know what to do with it. Wilshere and Walcott are making runs that amount to nothing because no one notices them in time. At least there haven't been many offsides this time.

FULL TIME: Arsenal 0 - 0 Red Star.

Well, that wasn't beautiful, to say the least. Red Star wasted a lot of time with fake injuries and such, but Arsenal didn't do the competition any justice, either: as soon as it became clear that Köln had their game under control, Arsenal stopped playing and just dribbled the ball around Red Star's half. Arsenal are through to the next round with two games to go, but if they had tried to win this game, they probably could have, based on the number of times Arsenal got in their penalty area with the ball.

There were a couple of refereeing errors worth noting here. Wilshere was brought down in the penalty area twice, but nothing was given either time. In the second incident, there was also a handball, but again, nothing. Red Star also kept fouling Wilshere consistently, especially by kicking him in the calves.

Arsenal did get one major favour from the ref, though: Holding barged in to a high ball leading with his elbow and got away with a yellow card. I can't find a video or gif of the incident just now, but look it up later (I'm sure it'll be all over the internet tomorrow). That's a red card every day of the week, pure and simple. I really hope Holding will never do something like that again, and that a foul like that will never again get punished with just a yellow.

Arsenal should've won this game, but both sides would probably have been happy with a draw going in to the game because they knew they could advance from the group with that, and of course, both sides are about equally famous and successful (arguably Red Star more so), so a draw is what most people probably would've predicted.

edited 2nd Nov '17 3:08:05 PM by BestOf

Vitória SC 1-0 Marseille

WE'RE STILL ALIVE BOYS!

@Julep: I arrived to the stadium a couple of minutes after that incident. I saw some of Marseille's fans pulling out chairs from our stadium and throwing them onto some of our fans (who then threw them back), on the other hand.

Anyway, Evra ended up not playing, and their team basically tried to play for the draw. Our defense was rock solid, even though our attacks were not quite as good (lots of wasted balls, some clumsy moves, and some slow timing).

Still, we kept the pressure going, and Hurtado's lovely header gave us the three points. For some reason, Marseille's coach ended up replacing their most dangerous player upfront. A win was necessary to keep our hopes alive, especially since RB Salzburg and Konyaspor drew (0-0). Salzburg has 8 points, Marseille has 6, we and Konyaspor have 4.

This win will hopefully give the team some more confidence before the match against Benfica this weekend.

It feels so great to watch a match live at the stadium after many years.

Group A: Two away wins. Astana won 1-0 against Maccabi Tel-Aviv (goal by Twumasi), and Villareal won 2-0 against Slavia Prague (goal by Bacca and own goal by Deli). Maccabi Tel-Aviv is already eliminated.

Group B: Partizan won 2-0 against Skënderbeu (goals by Zoran Tosic and Tawamba), while Dynamo Kyiv won 1-0 in Switzerland against Young Boys (goal by Buyalskyy). Dynamo Kyiv are qualified to the round of 32, and only need two more points to secure first place (and therefore a seeded spot).

Group C: Two 1-1 draws - Istanbul Basaksehir and Hoffenheim (goals here), and Ludogorets - Braga (goals by Marcelinho and Fransérgio. If Braga win at home against Hoffenheim 3 weeks from now, they'll qualify to the round of 32.

Group D: AEK Athens and Milan had a goalless draw, while Austria Wien demolished Rijeka at the latter's stadium by 4-1 (goals by Prokop, Pavicic, Prokop again, Serbest and Monschein).

Group E: Apollon and Atalanta drew 1-1 (penalty by Ilicic, equalizer by Zelaya), while Lyon comfortably beat Everton by 3-0 (goals here). Everton are now eliminated, and their fans are pretty much giving up on this season. Lyon and Atalanta will likely qualify (they only need a point, and Lyon will play against Apollon - 5 points of distance) to the next round.

Group F: Copenhagen beat Fastav Zlín by 3-0 (goals by Luftner, Verbic and Verbic once more), while Lokomotic Moscow surprisingly lost at home against Sheriff Tiraspol by 1-2 (goals by Farfan, Badibanga and Brezovec). A three-way battle between these two and Copenhagen seems likely.

Group G:FCSB/Steaua Bucharest drew 1-1 with Hapoel Be'er Sheva (goals by Florinel Coman - no relation nor common nationality with the more famous Coman - and Ben Sahar), while Viktoria Plzen comfortably won 4-1 against Lugano (goals by Krmencik, Mariani, Krmencik again, Horava and Cermak). With these results, FCSB is already qualified and will only need a draw in Plzen to secure the top/seeded spot.

Group H: As Best Of has confirmed, it was a goalless draw between Arsenal and Crvena Zvezda - Arsenal are already qualified. Köln and BATE had one crazy match, with the former winning 5-2 (goals here) and not wanting to throw the towel (they're only two points behind Cr.Z, and one behind BATE).

Group J: Two home wins, by At. Bilbao against Östersunds (goal by Aduriz), and by Hertha Berlin against Zorya Luhansk (a brace by Davie Selke).

Group K: Lazio has secured both qualification and the top/seeded spot, after winning 1-0 against Nice, thanks to an own goal by Le Marchand; Vitesse lost at home against Zulte Waregem (goals by Baudry and Kaya - can't find the second goal). Nice will need to win against Zulte to qualify.

Group L: Real Sociedad comfortably beat Vardar by 3-0 (goals by Juanmi, De La Bella and Orgilles Jon), while Rosenborg and Zenit drew 1-1 (penalty by 'lord' Bendtner, equalizer by Kokorin). With these results, Vardar are already eliminated, while Zenit is already qualified (and will likely duke it out with Sociedad for the top/seeded spot).

edited 2nd Nov '17 5:32:47 PM by Quag15

Marseille have indefinitely suspended Evra, in light of yesterday's event.

Peru will have to play the play-offs against New Zealand without Paolo Guerrero. He got positive in the anti-doping control (the one done after the match against Argentina, iirc) and he's provisionally suspended unless he can somehow prove his claim of him taking flu medicine. There are rumours that the substance is a stimulant and/or a social drug.

(Links in their respective native languages)

Meanwhile, some people at Chile insist that they should be the ones in the playoff instead of Peru. First it was because of the whole "Falcao plotted stuff" conspiranoia, and now because of the doping case. FIFA has ultimately turned down the accusations.

Guys, please accept failure when you're unable to earn victory in the green grass of the field. Trying to solve things via courtroom will only get you more enemies than friends (in fact, the Chile national team is becoming very hated for this).