The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

[pk500]

Non-English teams would get smoked more often in the CL if they had to run as deep of a schedule as in the Premier League.

La Liga usually is a two-team league, with Atletico joining the party recently. The Bundesliga and Serie A are a joke -- one-team leagues. Ligue 1 is a one- or two-team league.

Sure, there is a hierarchy of money and dominance in the Premier League among the big four or five. But Chelsea faces some risk against nearly any Premier League side other than the relegation sides. You can't say the same about leaders in other European leagues.

[pk500]

Stevie G's red card this morning was a metaphor for his sad final days at Liverpool. The sunshine of LA can't come soon enough for the talisman. What the hell was he thinking?

[Jimmydeicide]

Non-English teams would get smoked more often in the CL if they had to run as deep of a schedule as in the Premier League.

La Liga usually is a two-team league, with Atletico joining the party recently. The Bundesliga and Serie A are a joke -- one-team leagues. Ligue 1 is a one- or two-team league.

Sure, there is a hierarchy of money and dominance in the Premier League among the big four or five. But Chelsea faces some risk against nearly any Premier League side other than the relegation sides. You can't say the same about leaders in other European leagues.

And they get a 2 week break around the holidays while the Prem teams play 4 times .

[rhymes450]

Haha. So poor old Chelsea, Man City and Arsenal can't compete in Europe becasue they're worn out from dealing with the likes of Southamption and Everton. A friend of mine who lives in London put it to me last summer that the "Spanish League is just a training ground for the Premiership". I couldn't think of anything to say to him...in a year in which the ECL final was a Madrid derby and Seville's toughest match on the way to the Europa League was in the semis against Valencia. The fact that in the last few weeks Barcelona has lost to Real Sociedad and Atletico to Celta has probably gone unnoticed by those who think that Swansea and Southampton would wipe the floor with anyone outside the top three in Spain. I'm not saying that the Spanish League is better than the EPL but I think those who claim it's worse have very little on which to base the argument.

[XXXIV]

Stevie G's red card this morning was a metaphor for his sad final days at Liverpool. The sunshine of LA can't come soon enough for the talisman. What the hell was he thinking?

I felt bad watching it.

Im new to the gang but I can imagine.

If I feel this bad what are they feeling?

The guy doing the game did NOT help. It made the right call there but it was sickening every where else.

[10spro]

Stevie G's red card this morning was a metaphor for his sad final days at Liverpool. The sunshine of LA can't come soon enough for the talisman. What the hell was he thinking?

I felt bad watching it.

Im new to the gang but I can imagine.

If I feel this bad what are they feeling?

The guy doing the game did NOT help. It made the right call there but it was sickening every where else.

There was a lot of stomping during the game. Hendersson and Skrtel's stomps were left ignored. But yeah, Gerrard's obvious one was sad to see. I know Rooney usually takes the PK's for the team but why deny a hat trick to a player that was often a substitute this season and deny him of a hat trick?

Barca squeezed a win by their eternal rival 2-1 and go ahead 4 points ahead in the lead. Mascherano and Ronaldo should have been shown the door.

When I mentioned that their was no English teams left in the CL, it was simply an observation with no disrespect to any EPL team in particular and if jimmy felt offended, screw him. In my eyes the international league (that's what I call it) is indeed the league where every professional footballer dreams to play on today. And the most competitive one. Now, to say that the BBVA is a walk in the park is a not true either. But when you have the best players in the world like Messi, Neymar, Suarez, Bales, Ronaldo, Kroos, and they happen to be playing for the two most important teams in Spain, it would be a tremendous failure if they don't dominated the league as they had.

[Jimmydeicide]

I wasn't offended 10's you know me well enough. Just acting like it bothered me hence the stupid comment.
As far as which league is the best well, out side the elite teams in most European leagues you pretty much have equal teams i would say who could all beat each other on any day.
I think the Bundesliga is the best outside the Epl but i think its down to the style of play not cause the Teams are better or what not. If i didnt have 50 yrs invested in the British Teams i would probably watch the German teams first.

[Jimmydeicide]

Pick it out!!!

[F308GTB]

Pick it out!!!

It was a fantastic goal.

[10spro]

A nice 1-2 late run between James and Ronaldo created a perfect finish for Chicharito who hasn't scored since forever. Tough breaking into Simeone's web even with a man short but they did it advancing to the semis.

[GB_Simo]

Meanwhile, in Hartlepool...

Bottom of the entire Football League since the first weekend of October, knocked out of the FA Cup live on the BBC by a team of part-timers, 14 points after 23 matches, 10 points adrift of safety in January. We were still 8 points off as recently as March 7th, waving goodbye to league football for the first time since our formation in 1908.

Today, thanks partly to a huge upturn in form and partly to Tranmere and Cheltenham somehow lowering their own standards in ways science is yet to explain, we're safe. The 5 minutes between our victory over Exeter and the full-time whistle at Cheltenham's defeat to Shrewsbury were among the longest of my life, but who knew that supporting the third-worst side in the entire Football League could ever feel quite so good?

In saying that, I'd sell pieces of myself for a season of mid-table obscurity in 2015/16.

[Jimmydeicide]

So my old boys Tranmere are the worst side now? How sad

[fsquid]

Meanwhile, in Hartlepool...

Bottom of the entire Football League since the first weekend of October, knocked out of the FA Cup live on the BBC by a team of part-timers, 14 points after 23 matches, 10 points adrift of safety in January. We were still 8 points off as recently as March 7th, waving goodbye to league football for the first time since our formation in 1908.

Today, thanks partly to a huge upturn in form and partly to Tranmere and Cheltenham somehow lowering their own standards in ways science is yet to explain, we're safe. The 5 minutes between our victory over Exeter and the full-time whistle at Cheltenham's defeat to Shrewsbury were among the longest of my life, but who knew that supporting the third-worst side in the entire Football League could ever feel quite so good?

In saying that, I'd sell pieces of myself for a season of mid-table obscurity in 2015/16.

We always had Cardiff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwQOgbPP4hE

[GB_Simo]

So my old boys Tranmere are the worst side now? How sad

Bloody awful last I saw them, mate. Mark Palios seems to know what's needed and from what I've read the fans trust him but the Conference, or the National League or whatever it's called this season, has swallowed a few Football League mainstays in recent years. Hopefully Tranmere can get back out of there quickly enough.

Squiddy, I still haven't watched past the 80th minute. It's only 10 years ago now, so I'm sure I'll get over it in the next decade or two. Always preferred this clip anyway:

[fsquid]

I bought Adam Boyd ever time in the old football manager games.

[GB_Simo]

What might have been, mate. At his best, he made the game look so effortless that you wondered why everyone couldn't do it. Before I let everyone get back to Leicester vs Chelsea, this Harry Pearson article on Boydy from a couple of months back is well worth a read:

http://www.theguardian.com/football/foo ... hartlepool

[XXXIV]

Gerrard atones and gets it done.

[Jimmydeicide]

Sterling has turned into Aron Lenon.

[XXXIV]

He sure blew what should have been an easy goal today. I think he is going to be a great player.

[GB_Simo]

...what, nobody wants to laugh at Newcastle? Pardew Out - oh, hang on...

John Carver is a ticking time bomb at the best of times but not in my strangest, most heavily medicated dreams did I expect him, having lost 8 on the spin and inching progressively closer to Championship football, to lob almost the entire first team squad under the bus, say he'd told Janmaat to calm down prior to his sending-off because "I know what he's like" or state on record that he believes Mike Williamson got himself sent off deliberately. I don't buy into the old cliched view of the Toon Army being the best fans in the country - there's too much delusion and entitlement among too many of the fans for that to really hold true - but to say they don't deserve this doesn't really do the situation full justice.

[10spro]

Oh Messi...just clutch when the things looked gloom as BM was playing pretty tight and the masked man Lewandowski was the only Lone Ranger up front. I am hoping for 'El Clasico' all finals but as I posted before you can't take Juve for granted as RM found out yesterday.

[pk500]

...what, nobody wants to laugh at Newcastle? Pardew Out - oh, hang on...

John Carver is a ticking time bomb at the best of times but not in my strangest, most heavily medicated dreams did I expect him, having lost 8 on the spin and inching progressively closer to Championship football, to lob almost the entire first team squad under the bus, say he'd told Janmaat to calm down prior to his sending-off because "I know what he's like" or state on record that he believes Mike Williamson got himself sent off deliberately. I don't buy into the old cliched view of the Toon Army being the best fans in the country - there's too much delusion and entitlement among too many of the fans for that to really hold true - but to say they don't deserve this doesn't really do the situation full justice.

The entire world is seeing why John Carver was an assistant manager in English football for nearly a decade without getting a top job.

Carver's delusion deepened today. He called himself "the best coach in the Premier League." http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/32627362

[XXXIV]

Chelsea fans try to make nice with Gerrard but I think he thinks its too little too late....

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/ ... up-5674828

"Chelsea fans have shown me respect for a couple of seconds but slaughtered me all game," he said.



Another nice goal by him today.

http://mediacdn.fanatix.com/media/6a/d2 ... anatix.mp4

[wco81]

ESPN is doing an E60 on Sepp Blatter, Tuesday at 5 PM PST.

[pk500]

ESPN is doing an E60 on Sepp Blatter, Tuesday at 5 PM PST.

Hopefully ESPN will slaughter him with truth now it has lost World Cup rights to FOX. This would have been a guaranteed puff piece if ESPN still had World Cup telecast rights in the U.S.