Roiling football blather

entertainment said:

Football talk on Dissensus, nice haha. This Frenkie de Jong and Arthur pairing looks like what Barca has been missing since Xavi, Iniesta days.
My take is that tiki-taka is good because of tactical reasons, but mostly because it gives these arrogant fuckers a flag to fight under. Having a collective psyche of being protagonists is more important than tactics imo. Pep is a good coach because he has a good plan, but mostly because he can make 11 players believe in that plan like it's religious dogma.

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Easy to miss the football talk... there is only 298 pages of it after all.

What happened in the Barcelona game anyway, they were reporting it as one nil for a while but then it went back to nil nil, did they have one disallowed?

Some app sent out a notification Suarez had scored when he hadn't. Also Dortmund had a penalty saved.

version said:

Some app sent out a notification Suarez had scored when he hadn't. Also Dortmund had a penalty saved.

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Yeah it said Suarez forty something... ha, weird.

His away form in Europe is abysmal, hasn't scored a goal outside the Camp Nou in four years.

If only these group stage games weren't so utterly pointless, because as knockout ties some of these games could be excellent. Chelsea's group looks the most interesting now, and I guess the group with Inter/Barcelona/Dortmund also offers some potential thrills. But mainly....bring on the second round.

I actually missed all of the games yesterday. We planned to watch the whole thing but first my girlfriend wanted to buy something to smoke from our friend and then we went past this Nepalese takeaway on the way home, we got that and walked back to the car ready for a nice relaxing evening watching the footie, eating curry etc Except when I got to the car there were all these women standing around it making weird noises and they said that a kitten had run underneath and climbed into the engine and I couldn't start the car until it came out. At first I thought it was some kinda scam cos they were a bit weird and they had all these bits of cardboard round the car ostensibly to trap the cat but... I dunno... anyway, then I heard it mewing and stuff so I knew it was true. Long story short, eventually - after loads of other people had climbed around the car waving their phones and some annoying dissembling from these crazy cat ladies - someone called the fire brigade and they turned up and jacked up the car and tried to get it out but they still couldn't get it... finally it just legged it out and went under another car. So I fucked off and left them still peering under that waving food and miaowing... missed the fucking football though.

Real Madrid and Barca are in an absolute state at the moment. Obviously they'll be back, but it's the worst either of them have been in at least a decade. Hopefully Atleti, Sevilla and the rest can make the most of it.

version said:

Real Madrid and Barca are in an absolute state at the moment. Obviously they'll be back, but it's the worst either of them have been in at least a decade. Hopefully Atleti, Sevilla and the rest can make the most of it.

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Messi dragged Barca to their last two league titles and more than halfway to the CL last season. Him injured, they're not a top team. No intensity, no alacrity. It's been three or four years of complacency, hugs, kisses, maté and the mellow acquiescence of complete submission in the CL final stages. Lost 4-0 to Paris, 3-0 to Juve, 3-0 to Roma and 4-0 to Liverpool.

Valverde's days are surely numbered... from what I'm reading they're not using Griezemann properly and he looks like being another Coutinho for them (early days yet of course). How is he doing at Bayern?

I agree with you that Real and Barca will be back, but I'm not so sure about Man Utd.... what's the difference? Just relative wealth in their respective leagues?0

IdleRich said:

How is he doing at Bayern?

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He's looking better already. Lewandowski also let him take a pen which would have given him a hat-trick to give him his first goal.

Speaking of Lewandowski, he's on fire at the moment. Nine goals in five league games.

Arthur scored an absolute banger against Villareal earlier.

https://streamvi.com/watch.php?video=1569352550

Bang!

Not sure it's a crisis just yet. But people already saying Messi and Suarez don't like Griezemann. Could be just bollocks I guess. Football in general is too fast - lose two games it's a crisis, sack the manager and so on, win the next two and you're a genius at the wheel. I get that there is pressure, a few points dropped can lose lots of money if you miss out on the champions league etc, but sometimes a bit of time might help. Since Ferguson United have had Moyes, Van Gaal, Mourinho and now Solskjaer - can anyone honestly say that they would be in a much worse position if they'd just let Moyes have a few seasons? I mean, maybe they would, but maybe he would have figured it out and be doing well by now (and they would have saved all the money on pay-offs etc). I dunno.

Messi gave him an assist earlier and the two of them were all hugs and smiles so it might just be the media up to their usual tricks. One thing I will say is that Barca look miles better when Griezmann plays in Suarez's position and Suarez is on the bench.

Cazorla scored a banger tonight too. It's good to see him doing well after all the injury problems. Brilliant player.

I rate Suarez very highly. Like we were talking about that goal against Liverpool - at that point Liverpool were on top and there was one half-chance (quarter chance really) to Suarez and that's it one nil. Same as against England in the World Cup. But times change I guess, I haven't watched a lot of him lately and maybe that Liverpool one was one of his increasingly sporadic flashes of genius during his inevitable decline.

He's still capable of moments of brilliance, but he's lost his pace and gets caught on the ball too often. You watch Barca now and far too many of their attacks fail once they get to him. He's forever wasting opportunities, losing possession and being outrun and outmuscled.