A Beautiful Thread for the Beautiful Game

Benfica's side is composed of professionals, while the teams in the Segunda Divisão are amateurs, which explains their massive amount of goals scored.

Iran lost in the semi-finals against Japan (by 3-0), and Carlos Queiroz has left their NT. Apparently he's in the cards to become Colombia's NT manager.

The AFC Cup final will be played between Japan and Qatar (coincidentally, both are the invited nations for this year's Copa America). Qatar beat the hosts UAE by 4-0, under a heavy political atmosphere that saw their players being pelted with objects (including slippers) everytime they celebrated their goals.

Yesterday:

Feirense 1-2 Vitória SC

I did not watch the match nor listened to the radio since I had to deal with a problem on my laptop. Anyway, Tozé scored first goal, in the early minutes of the match. Feirense equalized near half-time, but Tozé didn't gave them much time to enjoy it, with this lovely goal.

Our win will be a bit marred by this controversial handball. The ref didn't gave Feirense a penalty due to Sacko's odd hand moves. I might be biased, but I'm a bit 50/50 on this. In any case, we got the three points away against a side that is in a relegation battle. We'll face Porto this upcoming weekend, who will likely try to unload their frustrations on Beleneses SAD tonight, after they lost the League Cup final on penalties against Sporting CP this past weekend.

Haven't been around due to Internet problems, so the amazing 2-4 victory by Real Madrid against Espanyol in La Liga, as well as the 4-2 victory against Girona in Copa del Rey, are both as cold as an iceberg.

Instead, I want to comment about the incredibly poor footplay shown by Manchester City against Newcastle, losing 2-1 to them. If Liverpool wins their next match, they'll be 7 points ahead of Guardiola's team.

I actually enjoy Pep's current misery, because of some incendiary statements he said about who were the best teams, citing only Barcelona, Juventus and Bayern because of the League titles they won while ignoring Real Madrid and the UCL trophies earned.

Real Madrid won 1-3 against Girona in Copa del Rey, and will face none other than Barcelona in semifinals. Gotta be a fun ride...

Juventus wasn't so lucky, having been eliminated 0-3 against Atalanta in Coppa Italia, and no doubt a major fiasco for Cristiano. And Chelsea's 4-0 defeat against Bournemouth in Premier League was the Curb-Stomp Battle of the weekday.

EDIT: Also, Qatar won the 2019 Asian Cup after defeating Japan 3-1.

Edited by MyFinalEdits on Feb 1st 2019 at 3:57:08 PM

I wouldn't say it's a fiasco for Ronaldo, since he (and Allegri) will be focusing his attention on the CL (besides, Atalanta are generally tough at home against Juventus, and the latter have won the last 4 Coppas, so, they didn't put a lot of effort for that match. The draw this weekend against Parma in the league does show some problems with Allegri's set-up.

Vitória SC 0-0 Porto

We didn't really create chances, but our defense was really good tonight. We also got lucky with a shot by one of our former players that hit the bar, but, for the most part, we earned the draw, thanks to a really good cohesiveness at the back, and a couple of crucial clearances near the goal line. Our midfield suffered from the absence of André André (due to a toe injury, iirc), which explains Porto's possession of the ball and the chances they created (numerous).

I think this is the first time in my life (as much as I remember) that we didn't lose against Porto home and away for the Liga. If we weren't so shit against Benfica, we could be by now level (or near level) with Sporting CP (who lost the Lisbon derby at home by 2-4, almost embarrassingly). Alas, we'll simply have to continue to battle for the fifth place, while Sporting will end up in fourth and will try to win the Cup (the Lisbon derby will be one of the semi-finals, with the first leg being played 3 days from now at Benfica's stadium.

Edited by Quag15 on Feb 3rd 2019 at 10:27:18 AM

After several days of searching, they finally found the flooded airplane where Emiliano Sala was traveling. What was supposed to be a promising future in Cardiff City after a good time in Nantes was, despite many people hoping otherwise, replaced by a fatal tragedy. My condolences tpo his family and friend, as well as fans of both clubs.

Barcelona got a 2-2 tie against Valencia, but Atlético was unable to take advantage of that since they lost 1-0 to Betis. Ha! Real Madrid did win their match against Alavés (3-0, including an excellent goal by Mariano).

Manchester City demolished Chelsea 6-0, and Benfica annihilated Nacional by 10-0(!).

Yesterday, we lost 1-0 away against Tondela, due to this embarrassing goal, followed by them pulling a great defensive performance (then again, our finishing is shit, so, it wasn't hard for them). Moreirense sits in 5th place, 3 points above us, after drawing 1-1 with Porto 2 days ago.

The title race is back and in full force (Porto, Benfica and Braga, with the latter being only 2 points behind the former).

The CL round of 16 began today. Two matches today, two tomorrow, same procedure next week.

Manchester United lost 0-2 against PSG. This is the first time ever in their entire history they lost by more than 1 goal in an European comp at home, apparently. Goals here (plus Pogba getting sent off). PSG have one foot in the quarters now.

Roma won 2-1 against Porto (a a brace by Zaniolo and a bit of a lucky goal by Adrian, all in the space of 8 minutes). The first half was a bit boring (apart from a shot by one of Roma's players that hit the post), but the second half was more lively. Casillas saved a shot near the end with his face(!), thus giving Porto a good lifeline for the second leg at their stadium.

There was also one Europa League round of 32 match today. Fenerbahçe won 1-0 against Zenit (goal by Slimani and a saved penalty - that would have given Zenit an away goal if it had gone in - here).

After a very disastrous first half (including an Ajax goal that went unfairly void), Real Madrid reacted in the second and won a hard-earned 2-1 against the Dutch in Holland. Solari's team, aside from said terrible first half in this match, has otherwise gotten better recently, having so far gotten a good tie against Barcelona in Copa del Rey (1-1 at Camp Nou, the second leg will happen at the end of this month), and a convincing victory against Atlético in the Madrid derby (3-1). Actually, Madrid has managed to get back that second spot in theleague table they had for the last time in May 2017, when they ultimately became champions after their victory in the last matchday (they were never second in the 2017-18 season, they were fourth for a long time until they finished third. In the current one, Lol-petegi left us ninth before Solari's arrival).

Meanwhile, Tottenham defeated Dortmund 3-0.

Paraguay's national team manager Osorio (formerly the coach of Mexico) stepped down after some harsh pressure. Apparently, he just couldn't keep his mouth shut after so many teases over him hopping into the Colombian team. And now that Colombia hired Carlos Queiroz, Osorio has left without the bread and without the butter.

Lastly, Gianni Infantino will be president of FIFA for the following years after he remained as the only candidate for the job.

I know I should have posted all this stuff before, but sadly my Internet connection has been too limited (one of many disgraces from where I live).

Edited by MyFinalEdits on Feb 13th 2019 at 11:05:48 AM

No problem, thanks for the update. I could have posted earlier or yesterday, but I had other thoughts on my mind.

Half the Europa League round of 32 matches (1st leg, obviously) have ended and the other half (minus the match from 2 days ago) has just begun.

Galatasaray lost at home by 1-2 against a Benfica that rotated 6(!) of their players and saw a couple of players from the B team made their debut. Considering Bruno Lage was promoted from the B team, this goes to confirm he's a coach on the rise. Goals by Salvio (penalty), Luyindama and Seferovic. This is the first time ever Benfica won in Turkey, apparently.

BATE Borisov won 1-0 at home against Arsenal (goal by Drahun), in a match that saw Lacazette getting sent off. Emery's face is a fitting reaction to the team's performance◊.

Rapid Wien lost at home by 0-1 against Inter (penalty goal by Lautaro Martinez). With Icardi having refused to go to Austria with the team after getting stripped of the captaincy (his wife pushed things a bit too far behind the scenes - it's a long story), Inter fans will hope Lautaro will step up to compensate for the dickish attitude of their top goalscorer.

The Sevilla teams did well. Sevilla won away against Lazio with a goal by Ben Yedder, while Betis drew away 3-3(!) against a Rennes that punched above their weight (goals by Hunou, Javi Garcia (own goal), Lo Celso, Ben Arfa (penalty), Sidnei and Diego 'Efecto' Lainez), in what was certainly an exciting match.

Olympiacos drew 2-2 with Dynamo Kyiv (goals by Ahmed Hassan, Buyalskyy, Gil Dias (banger of a goal) and Verbic).

Krasnodar x Leverkusen and Slavia Praha x Genk ended in goalless draws.

Edited by Quag15 on Feb 14th 2019 at 8:37:07 PM

The other half has ended some minutes ago.

Sporting CP lost at home 0-1 (goal by Alfonso in the first minutes of the match) against Villareal. Discontentment with Marcel Keizer is increasing, especially since Villareal are in a relegation battle in the Liga next door.

The other 'Lions', Celtic, lost against a Spanish team as well, namely Valencia, by 0-2 (goals here).

Shakhtar Donetsk and Eintracht Frankfurt drew 2-2 (goals by Hinteregger, Marlos (penalty), Kostic and Taison). Both of these have shown arguments on why they deserve to go through, but Frankfurt are a little better at the moment.

Malmö lost 1-2 against Chelsea at home (goals by Barkley, Giroud and Christiansen). A welcoming breath for pause for Chelsea, after the humiliation suffered a few days ago against Manchester City.

Napoli comfortably won 3-1 away against Zürich (goals by Insigne, Callejon, Zielinski and a consolation goal for Kololli (penalty)).

Club Brugge won 2-1 against Red Bull Salzburg after being down at first (goals by Junuzovic - this one was a lob - Denswil and Wesley). Ditto for Viktoria Plzen against Dinamo Zagreb (goals by Dani Olmo and Ludek Pernica). However, RB Salzburg and Dinamo Zagreb are strong at home, so, they remain confident.

Vitória SC 2-0 Portimonense

Although we were poor in the first half, our two nice headers (one in the first half, one in the second) gave us three points. It's a decent enough response after last week's embarrassing performance against Tondela. If Moreirense lose against Tondela tomorrow, we'll return to the fifth place.

First goal by Mattheus, Second goal by Alexandre Guedes.

After the departure of Osorio from Paraguay, Eduardo Berizzo appears to be his replacement. Though he's not a bad manager, his poor tenure at Sevilla in 2017 and Athletic Club last year makes me wonder if he's the most ideal person for a low-resource national team like that of Paraguay.

Also, Simeone renewed his contract with Atlético from 2020 to 2022, while Valverde will stay in Barcelona until 2020.

And that Simeone renewal is paying off...

Atlético "de Uruguay" Madrid won 2-0 against Juventus, with goals by Giménez and Godín. Simeone's reaction says it all◊. It's likely that Allegri will leave Juventus at the end of this season, unless a miracle happens in Turin for the second leg.

Schalke lost 2-3 against Manchester City (goals here - including a brace by Bentaleb - plus Otamendi getting the red card.

Yesterday, needless to say, was a desert in terms of goals. 0-0 for Lyon vs Barcelona (Lyon put up a fierce defense) and Liverpool 0-0 Bayern Munich (apparently the second half of this one was dreadfully boring).

There was also one Europa League match today. Sevilla comfortably won 2-0 (3-0 on agg.) against a Lazio wracked with injuries and poor tactical decisions. Goals by Ben Yedder and Pablo Sarabia.

I didn't do the Europa League yesterday, because of other stuff I had to do. So let's do it today, since the draw for the round of 16 has been done already.

Dinamo Zagreb will face Benfica in the round of 16. The Croatian side won 3-0 (4-2 on agg.) against Viktoria Plzen (goals by Orsic, Dilaver and Petkovic), while Benfica drew 0-0 against a Galatasaray that seemed to have pretty much given up before the match started (2-1 on agg. for Benfica), and so, didn't do much.

Chelsea will face Dynamo Kyiv. The former comfortably beat Malmö 3-0 (goals by Giroud, Ross Barkley and Hudson-Odoi), in a match that also had one of Malmö's players, one Rasmus Bengtsson, get a swcond yellow. 5-1 on aggregate; the latter won 1-0 (3-2 on agg.) against Olympiakos (goal by Fran Sol).

Frankfurt x Internazionale will be a highlight fixture for the upcoming round. The currently exciting German side won 4-1 (6-3 on agg.) against Shakhtar Donetsk (goals by Jovic, Haller (penalty), Junior Moraes, Haller (not a penalty in this one), and Rebic), while the nerazzurri comfortably destroyed Rapid Wien by 4-0 (5-0 on agg.) without feeling the absence of Icardi - who was on the bench, iirc - due to the ongoing situation there (goals by Vecino, Ranocchia, Perisic and Politano).

Napoli will face Red Bull Salzburg in what will certainly be the other highlight fixture for the next round. The former won 2-0 (5-1 on agg.) without breaking a sweat against Zürich (goals by Verdi and Ounas), while the latter only had to win 1-0 against Club Brugge, but procceded to destroy them 4-0 (5-2 on agg.), with goals by Schlager, a brace by Patson Daka and a goal in stoppage time by Dabbur, who is a candidate for top goalscorer of the tournament.

Valencia will face Krasnodar. The former won 1-0 (3-0 on agg.) against Celtic (goal by Gameiro), in a match that saw a Celtic player, Toljan, get a second yellow, while the latter drew away 1-1 with Leverkusen (goals by Suleymanov (free-kick) and Aranguiz). The away goal by the Russian side broke the tie.

Sevilla will face (and likely win against) Slavia Praha. The former, as I had said in the post above, won 2-0 against Lazio (3-0 on agg.), while the latter won spectacularly by 4-1 at Genk's stadium. The Belgian side scored first - it was Trossard - but the Czech side procceded to dismantle them thoroughly, with goals by Coufal, Ibrahim Traore, and a brace by Milan Skoda. Simply clever.

Arsenal will face Rennes. The Gunners did a great turnaround from their loss against BATE Borisov by winning 3-0 (3-1 on agg.), courtesy of an own goal by Volkov, and goals by Mustafi and Sokratis. The French side won in spectacular fashion by 3-1 in Seville (6-4 on agg.) against Betis (goals by Bensebaini, Hunou, Lo Celso and M'Baye Niang).

And finally, Zenit will face Villareal. The Russian side turned around in a way similar to Arsenal, by winning 3-1 (3-2 on agg.) at home against Fenerbahçe (goals by Ozdoev, Sardar Azmoun, Mehmet Topal and Azmoun again. The Iranian player made his home debut for the club with this brace, which will surely do wonders for his relationship with the fans.

The yellow submarine, on the other hand, had a little help... not so much from a friend (don't wanna throw accusations out there), but from an incompetent ref who was too lenient in regards to their fouls on Sporting CP's players, while giving a second yellow to Jefferson for whatever constitutes a foul in his head. Bruno Fernandes scored first - the man is in sensational form and is basically carrying the club on the pitch - but Jefferson's sending off screwed up Sporting's system (with Bas Dost being pretty much invisible, save for a miss near the end), thus allowing Villareal to equalize with a goal by Fornals. 1-1, 2-1 on agg. in favour of the Spanish side.

Online again! (I was yesterday, but for a time so brief I chose to edit a few wiki articles instead)

I only watched a small handful of UCL matches. The only one who kept me entertained was between Atlético and Juventus. Man, Cristiano played so poorly in the match. He should stop pressuming about him having won the tourney five times and instead help his team, which hasn't won one since 1996!

Around here in South America, the preliminary rounds in both Copa Sudamericana and Libertadores have been weak. I'm sure it will get better in the subseaquent rounds, but it shocks me that even the filter against weak clubs is weak in itself.

Guardiola won his fourth trophy with Manchester City, namely the EPL Cup, via penalty shootouts against Chelsea. Nobody is talking about that, however. Near the end of the extra time, Kepa (Chelsea's goalkeeper) refused to be replaced by Caballero, to Maurizio Sarri's ire. It's readily apparent that times are getting even worse for the Blues, especially for their manager.

In Spain, Real Madrid won 1-2 against Levante after a very pitiful, deplorable footplay which included a very questionable penalty for them and, after Bale scored it succesfully, he celebrated it with so much anger that he didn't want the rest of his team to accompany him. Meanwhile, Barcelona won 2-4 against Sevilla with a very lethal Messi. Things are going to get ugly in the two Clásicos, I'm sensing it.

Brendan Rodgers has signed as the new Leicester City manager. He's got a five million pound a year contract.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47381448

I'm not sure I can blame him. Winning the Scottish domestic title and the trophies year on year can get boring if you're not getting the money to do a proper job in Europe. That said, the Leicester job sounds a bit like a poisoned chalice to me - five managers in less than three years or so is a bit much.

That's nothing, Over the course of the Argentine top division's current season, as of the 20th matchday, 21 managers have either resigned, finished their contracts without renewing, or were sacked. That's right, there were more terminations for managers than matchdays there!

So, it's not only the National team that's a mess over there. Good to know.

Makes you fear for the rest of their staffs.

Also, Barcelona beat Real 3-0 for La Copa Del Rey. Man, it feels like Real just loses a lot when facing their rivals.

Edited by Blueace on Feb 27th 2019 at 7:04:51 AM

I know, right?

The sad thing is, Madrid actually played well during the first 70 minutes. Only after receiving the second goal was when things went south for them. I feel bad for Solari because he's by no means the culprit for this situation (at least not the biggest one). What worries me the most is, in case he either gets sacked or resigns, who will come next.

Also, since it was proven that Sergio Ramos deliberately looked for the last yellow card in the match against Ajax, he will be suspended for one more match.

And there's still one more match against Barcelona, this time in the Liga, this weekend.

El Clássico: Real 0-1 Barcelona.

O Clássico: Porto 1-2 Benfica. Porto scored first, but Benfica gave a Mourinho-like counter-attack masterclass and still managed to hold out the last 15 minutes with 10 men. Bruno Lage is a serious manager on the rise, João Félix is a promising kid who will definitely be going places.

Derby della Capitale: Lazio smashed Roma 3-0. Di Francesco will likely be sacked if Porto eliminates Roma in the second leg of the CL.

What a crazy day.

Barcelona, for the first time since the now distant early decades of their amd Madrid's existence, is now ahead in the lifetime Clásico statistics. 96 victories over 95, counting all competitions. Barcelona are also the second team in the current century alongside Atlético Madrid to have won in Santiago Bernabéu three times in a row.

The only thing that has to be said is that Real Madrid is veering close to the start of a new Dork Age (their last was 2004-2010), because this deep crisis goes well beyond just a bad brief period.

Real looks weaker lately, and dunno if it's psychological or something, but they don't seem to inspire much confidence. Hell, even in the Champions they don't look that good for getting farther. What's the issue? Because I hope it isn't just Cristiano leaving.

Zidane leaving, too. But more importantly (after all, all good things have to end sooner or later), it is that they were never able to find a proper succesor for Cristiano. 2014 was the last time when Madrid played a very active role in the transfer market. Basically, it all boild down to poor pre-season planning.

At least River Plate is faring well; they've recently defeated Newell's by 4-2. They still need a couple more points if they want to reach the 4th spot to enter Libertadores zone for next season, though.

Edited by MyFinalEdits on Mar 2nd 2019 at 10:55:01 AM

So, do you think La Liga is resolved now or...?