The Football (soccer) thread.

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djm
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The Football (soccer) thread.

Post by djm » Mon Apr 19, 2021 7:57 pm

As the worlds favourite sport, I thought football should have its own thread.

Like most Brits I have a lifelong devotion to a club that has been passed down the generations. I support the team my grandfather started watching in the 1930s when he crept under the turnstiles at half time when he succesfully escaped the orphanage on a saturday afternoon. My team Aston Villa are one of the oldest in the world (second oldest professional football club) and first played in 1874. They are comfortably the largest club in the West Midlands, a conurbation of more the 5 million people, but have not won much since reaching the pinnacle of club football by winning the European Cup in 1982.

Today is a sad day for football in my country, and in Europe as a whole. 12 greedy owners have announced a breakaway 'European Super League' with no promotion and relegation on the US model of shit non competitive sport. They are fed up of upstarts winning trophies, and possible interruptions to their 'business model', They don't give a fuck about the 'legacy fans' (local supporters with longstanding links) those horrible unwashed working class people that used to fund them before TV money. No they want uninterrupted access to plastic fans around the globe.

English football is tribal. Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester City and Chelsea have declared war on football in general and even their own fans. And lets not pretend this is about creating a good competition, These so called 'big 6' have some mediocre clubs amongst them regards actually being any good at football.

My club beat Liverpool 7-2 this season, and has beaten Arsenal twice. Spurs have not won the league since 1962 (during that time my club have won the League, the League cup 5 times, the European Cup, and the European Super Cup). None of Spurs, Manchester City or Arsenal have ever won the European Cup. Both Man City and Chelsea have spent the majority of their history bouncing up and down the leagues and winning nothing. No this is about billionaire owners, and TV moguls. Spurs and Arsenal are involved purely as they are in London and have marketing potential, they could not possibly be included on sporting merit. Indeed Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs are all unlikely to qualify for European competition this season.

The power struggle has begun, with UEFA (the European governing body), the FA (The English governing body), condemning it, along with the Prime Minister, all opposition political parties in the UK, and pretty much all supporters here. The Italian government has followed suit (AC Milan, Internazionale, and Juventus are involved in this mess), and the Spanish government (Atletico, Real Madrid and Barcelona are involved).

To their credit the big German clubs (Bayern Munich and Burussia Dortmund) have disowned it, as have PSG in France.

I hope they get chucked out of their domestic leagues, and legitimate European competitions. Not holding my breath though.

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Ferrus
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Re: The Football (soccer) thread.

Post by Ferrus » Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:28 pm

Thing is, to me it is no surprise. It's where the sport has been going for 30 years at least, ever since Sky pushed the FA out and effectively created the Premier League. Call me cynical but it's hard to think the Sun would be so against this if Murdoch had a slice of the pie. Then the ever increasing player salaries, TV channels, the ITV Digital saga that nearly destroyed many local lower league clubs, the merchandisimg operations, the Arab/Russian/American billionaires snapping up every club. This didn't come as a bolt from the blue, in fact I'm sure I heard rumours of this 20 years ago.

And I'm not sure about the modern generation of fans either. Over the last decades more and more people just support the big teams even in the UK without the local connection. I remember at school all the Man Utd and Liverpool supports in Kent where there is a league side (Gillingham) and a couple of Conference teams. My personal opinion is that if the fans are genuinely unhappy they should vote with their feet, and support their local clubs or fan-driven clubs like AFC Wimbledon (after the MKDons debacle, I used to support the old Wimbledon for my sins) or United of Manchester. I'm not really sure its the governments business to interfere in what has been basically an entertainment business. I mean I have no doubt it will be utter crap, but that's not the same as saying it should be illegal any more than any other comnercial product I may or may not like. The fans if they are earnest and it means as much culturally as they say they should be able to work this out through their own sacrifices themselves without invoking the state.

There is also the possibility that there might be the upside of clearing these teams with their bulging wallets out the system it might actually make other smaller teams more competitive and put a bit more excitement into the top league and give it the unpredictability it had before the mid 90's.

And it's not the only sport either. F1 has had the entertainment drained out since Bernie Ecclestone won the FISA-FOCA war and commercialised the hell out of the sport earning nice packet from every country that wants a PR coup. The push by money against test cricket to one day cricket mainly stemming from India is another.
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Ferrus
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Re: The Football (soccer) thread.

Post by Ferrus » Tue Apr 20, 2021 8:43 pm

Well, the proposal seems to have collapsed under its own fatuity. :palm:

The thing is, UEFA and the champions league have been moving in this direction for a long time:

https://www.si.com/soccer/2021/03/31/ch ... -criticism

^ Is an excellent article about this. UEFA caved into pressure for a super league back in 1998 to get rid of the Cup Winner's Cup and create the Champions League group stages to ensure big clubs got lots of broadcast rights for big game. In fact the 2024 season changes make this far worth with this so-called "Swiss model". And even these acts of debasing desperateness by UEFA wasn't enough to stop the drama of the last couple of days.
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MoneyJungle
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Re: The Football (soccer) thread.

Post by MoneyJungle » Wed Apr 21, 2021 4:20 am

I played center-back from when I was a little kid until I discovered drugs in high school. The game of soccer has a lot to offer as a spectator sport. I’ve been trying to convince my American friends who are sports fans to watch matches for a long time. The relegation and promotion system completely eliminate the tanking (losing games on purpose for draft picks) of, especially the NBA but also the NFL. Jockeying for spots in the multiple European competitions gives stakes to matches that would have none in our leagues. The halves are free of commercial interruptions. The stars suffer fewer injuries than football and basketball players. The objections I encounter when I can convince someone to watch a match with me are the imprecise timekeeping and the flopping (which has decreased in the last few years, unless I’m just desensitized). Soccer appreciation seems to begin and end with the World Cup for 90% of sports fans in the USA, at least among the Anglophones.

European matches weren’t consistently televised here in the states until around 2005. I picked Manchester United as my team around that time from among the limited options of who I could actually watch week in and out. It was pure glory chasing. My local sports teams haven’t won anything since 1994 (our basketball team is particularly abysmal). Manchester United’s wavering fortunes over the last ten years or so has given way to Man City, Bayern Munich, etc becoming more appealing to bandwagon jumpers. There seems to be a lot of American Arsenal fans among the literati, who may have read Fever Pitch or just decided they like their scarves. The only strangers who have ever approved of me wearing Manchester United stuff were East Asian immigrants. The only tribalism among soccer fans in my neck of the woods is between fans of the Mexican clubs (particularly Chivas, Monterrey and America). There’s some LARPing among MLS fans but the socioeconomic and geographic factors of English football aren’t replicable here.

I watch every Manchester United match and some other big matches. This has been a particularly interesting season, even if the Premiership for City seems to’ve been a foregone conclusion for weeks. Which Pogba will show up is always a mystery. I thought OGS wasn’t long for his job but things have turned around nicely. Dean Henderson’s ballcap last Sunday was an amusing spectacle.

I’d prefer Manchester United didn’t have anything to do with a Superleague but I don’t expect the Glazers to care about the tradition and community of English Football. I can only imagine how angry multi-generational club supporters are. I doubt the rank and file have been able to afford match tickets to top flight teams for years. It seems like clubs used the Hillsborough disaster as an excuse to price out working class fans under the auspice of public safety.

Beloved clubs will ultimately fall victim to globalization (foreign investment and economic stratification). Fewer people live near the grounds of their family club than ever. I’m sure even the English are becoming more mercenary in team support as they are forced to relocate for economic opportunities and the league becomes more top-heavy (in terms of acquiring sexy new players if not wins). Players certainly have fewer qualms about changing shirts. I don’t know if there’s a remedy for all this and it saddens me. It’s just another case of wealth concentration.

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C.J.Woolf
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Re: The Football (soccer) thread.

Post by C.J.Woolf » Wed Apr 21, 2021 5:55 pm

I read that the Super League owners wanted to invite Bayern München and Borussia Dortmund but the German clubs turned them down flat. I suspect their public ownership was the reason. (The big German sports clubs aren't just about top-tier professional football; they have over 100,000 members each and field teams in many sports.)

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SomeInternetBloke
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Re: The Football (soccer) thread.

Post by SomeInternetBloke » Tue May 18, 2021 7:37 pm

This recently in
"My favourite song from one of my favourite albums, Nena asking you to please, please let her be your pirate. So smooth and joyful, I have to listen to it three times if I listen once" - ashi

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MoneyJungle
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Re: The Football (soccer) thread.

Post by MoneyJungle » Thu May 20, 2021 5:29 am

River Plate won a Copa Libertadores game with a midfielder playing goalie because all four of their goalies were in health/safety protocols. They had no subs, either.

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SomeInternetBloke
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Re: The Football (soccer) thread.

Post by SomeInternetBloke » Sat Jul 17, 2021 7:04 pm

:idea: abazaba is my only friend :boogie:
Last edited by SomeInternetBloke on Mon Jul 26, 2021 6:23 am, edited 3 times in total.
"My favourite song from one of my favourite albums, Nena asking you to please, please let her be your pirate. So smooth and joyful, I have to listen to it three times if I listen once" - ashi

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jyng1
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Re: The Football (soccer) thread.

Post by jyng1 » Sun Jul 25, 2021 9:09 am

Shit, I have to go to bed for an early start but we're 2-1 ahead against Honduras... I guess I'm going to be tired tomorrow.

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