A Beautiful Thread for the Beautiful Game

Xabi Alonso has truly made history. Kudos to him!

We'll see now if they can also win the Pokal and the Europa League (they're in the former's final and are currently winning 2-0 against West Ham in the quarterfinals of the latter).

Liverpool lost too. The Premier will be decided by who can handle the nerves better, it seems.

And I wonder how long will the Leverkusen will keep the unbeaten streak.

Ho.

Ly.

Crap.

Dortmund won 3-1 against Atlético and tipped the scales. And Paris Saint-Germain did the same against Barcelona, albeit 1-4.

Dang, I didn't see either of those coming. Color me shocked.

We'll see what happens tomorrow. Madrid and City had sealed a 3-3 tie while Bayern and Arsenal sealed a 2-2 one. So the scales are evenly leveled for them so far.

EDIT: I almost forgot a small, yet crucial detail. Today's results have confirmed Atlético's entrance to next year's Club World Cup. Barcelona needed to either advance further than them or outright win this UCL in order to qualify as well (Real Madrid had already gotten in by winning the 2022 UCL).

Edited by MyFinalEdits on Apr 16th 2024 at 5:05:44 AM

City is out and I can now rejoice as I will be happy no matter who wins it all in the end, for various reasons.

Watched the whole match. It was a rollercoaster of nervousness, excitement, anxiety and in the end rejoice. It was the most formidable rival that could have corresponded to Real Madrid in the quarterfinals. Of note is that, with the 1-1 result, Madrid still has never won the the Etihad Stadium, but at least there's the consolation that they didn't lose this time either (certainly, it wasn't a 4-0 curb-stomp like last year...)

Also, can we start calling the goalkeeper San Lunin? Not only did he stop a potential goal which could have lead to an earlier equalizer on City's part (and who knows if the actual scored goal by them would have been thus 2-1...), but the first shot he stopped from City in the penalty phase was a Panenka. The bastard may have had some flunks in the past, but he's not naive.

Meanwhile, Bayern won 1-0 against Arsenal and will be Real Madrid's rival in the semifinals (the other showdown will be between PSG and Dortmund).

EDIT: One detail I forgot: Due to Arsenal's elimination, the last remaining berth for Europeans to the Club World Cup which is due next year will go to Salzburg. The reason for this is because Salzburg was the highest-ranked club from a country other than those with two qualified teams each, and because Chelsea and Manchester City were already qualified on England's side after having won the Champions League in 2021 and 2023 respectively, Arsenal needed to win the current edition to be a potential third English team within next year's World Cup tournament (and since all teams in the upcoming semifinals are already qualified, then the berth that awaited for the winner of the UCL went to the FIFA ranking instead, hence Salzburg).

Edited by MyFinalEdits on Apr 17th 2024 at 9:30:38 AM

The bad news is that City is out of the UCL, which I admit sucks being a City fan myself.

The good news is Harry Kane still has another chance of bring his trophy curse to an end. It's his final chance before heading back to Tottenham.

Heading back? So Kane's transfer to Bayern is only temporary?

Not really. He's still at Bayern for another 3 years. It's just that Tottenham will face them at a pre-season friendly. This article also mentions Eric Dier signing with Bayern, essentially turning his loan move to a permanent one.

Oh, I got it. Thanks!

I came to see if there were comments after Aston Villa's elimination of Lille in the Conference League.

Why is it relevant? AV's goalkeeper is none other than Emiliano "Dibu" Martínez, the most hated foreign player in France. For obvious reasons. 😁😁😁

And the away match took place in France. AV won the home match 2-1, and Lille was winning 2-0 the second match, until AV did the tie goal. Lille's fans kept booing Dibu during the whole match. Penalties ensued, and Dibu caught the last one. Cue dance.

Edited by AM_NK on Apr 19th 2024 at 9:44:34 AM

I admit I wasn't following the UEL or ECL matches (except to briefly see if Leverkusen would keep their unbeaten streak, which so far they did as they managed to save a tie in their away match against West Ham), but I have to say I'm getting tired of Dibu's cocky attitude. -_-

Has been a crazy weekend...

Real Madrid won 3-2 against Barcelona, and is now 11 points ahead in the top of the league's table. I admit the match was ñpretty awkward. Even when Barcelona scored first, Madrid didn't go crazy and instead kept with their plan, so in that sense I'm satisfied. However, I do think that Barcelona scored what appears to be a ghost goal, and VAR could not review it due to a lack of goal line technology in Spain (Tebas, the president of the league, was criticized before for this absence). I wouldn't have minded a 3-3 tie (Madrid would have kept their +8 advantage), as I feel that this victory may now become Overshadowed by Controversy.

In England, Manchester City got a difficult 1-0 victory against Chelsea (they were very strained after the match against Madrid, so it's understandable) and qualified to the final of the FA Cup. Manchester United did the same against Coventry, albeit on penalty shootouts after a surprising 3-3 tie.

Last (and for me least, sadly), River lost 2-3 against Boca. Yikes!

Inter beat the AC Milan 2-1 and they became Italy's champion. Rather rough ending, though.

That's decided with five games left, so the rest will be the international cups and relegation.

Edited by Blueace on Apr 22nd 2024 at 5:58:03 AM

Argentinean lower league news time!

There's a club, Camioneros de General Rodríguez (or 9 de Abril). It's a club founded in 2010 by the local truckers' syndicate, a very powerful organization with quite the history. In Argentina's popular football tradition it may seem an oddity, given that most clubs that play on every eschelon of AFA are quite old (we're talking over 100 years of continued history, with some exceptions such as Defensa y Justicia (1978) and in the IA side Argentino Agropecuario (2012) and Crucero del Norte (1989)), but historically clubs here were usually founded by people from all walks of life, from rail workers (all the Talleres and Central Córdoba, for example) to the high class (Gimnasia y Esgrima de La Plata). Hell, we even have in Primera División and Primera Nacional clubs founded by anarchists and leftists (Argentinos Juniors, Chacarita Juniors, Colegiales, Nueva Chicago, Defensores de Belgrano). So clubs based on syndicates aren't exactly an anomaly here.

Anyway, this particular club, for this season, competed in two tournaments with two teams: the massive, no-age-limit Torneo Regional Federal Amateur, which this season had over 200 teams playing for 5 promotions (initially 4) to the Torneo Federal A (third division for the indirectly-affiliated clubs i.e. 98% of this country's clubs) and the incipient Torneo Promocional Amateur (a new fourth division created this year after the fusion of the Primera C and Primera D divisions, where only U-25 players were allowed to compete). And Camioneros participated in both Promocional Amateur and Regional Amateur by exploiting a Loophole Abuse (I haven't really checked out, but I'm sure it wasn't the only club in this situation).

Thing is... Camioneros did the impossible and achieved both promotions. On February they've won the fifth and final promotion to Federal A by winning against Jujuy's Altos Hornos Zapla, and this weekend they won one of the two promotions to Primera C by winning the Promocional Amateur's Torneo Apertura.

How are they going to move forward? The rumor is that they'll retire the Federal A team (after all, it's the more expensive of the two tournaments), freeing a space for another team. Though they'll be instead declared the "relegated" team there in order to keep with the tournament's rules.

Edited by AM_NK on Apr 25th 2024 at 8:58:35 AM

Watch as they reach top flight and become champions before Gimnasia y Esgrima.

This last weekend PSG became Ligue 1 champions... nothing new under the sun.

Whag is new (and unexpected) is the Sudden Downer Ending that Klopp's tenure at Liverpool is having. Their chances to win the Premier League are minimal, and on top of that Klopp and Salah had a very bitter arguing (the latter, when asking about it, said "I'll be fired if I speak right now"). Ouch...

And this is on the heels of the confirmation that Arne Slot (current Feyenoord fame) will replace Klopp to lead Liverpool the next season).

Bayern 2 - 2 Real Madrid

Not sure how I feel about this result. Real Madrid spent a good chunk of the match ahead in the scoreboard, after a fantastic 0-1 goal by Vinicius. Then came a goal by Bayern, then a naive penalty that resulted in another Bayern goal, and finally a fairly dubious penalty in favor of Real Madrid that resulted in the final equalizer. Madrid will have to win in their stadium next week, and I'm not sure if they can pull it off.