IdleRich

IdleRich
Yeah I'm acknowledging that - for the last 9 years they have won the league, for the last 24 they haven't been able to win the CL - there is a difficulty as to how to judge yet another team/manager that falls into the same space as the rest, I think he deserves more than one year to state his case.
What happened to the Italian league though? I never foresaw that Milan, Inter and so on would become bit-players like this. Such a shame when a league is dominated like that - I know you got PSQ and Bayern doing the same but (with all due respect to those leagues) they never had the same number of glamour teams as Italy.
At least in Spain you got two teams who can win it and - thank fuck - the UK balance of power keeps shifting, albeit not always for the right (sporting) reasons...
 

version

Well-known member
I'm not sure what happened with the league. It seems as though one of the other teams has a good season every now and then and pushes them, but ultimately never knocks them off their perch. Napoli were good for a while.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Napoli look good every time I see em in the CL but they obviously never sustain it for a season. Wasn't it under Sarri they did well?
Dunno why they (Juve) sacked the guy before Sarri though, who was it again?
The point is that the teams in the CL are really good, you can't demand to win it, only to be there or thereabouts I reckon, a bit of luck can always scupper you and you need a bit of luck to win too.
 
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version

Well-known member
I wanted to write an essay on Messi just so I could use Sade as the epigraph: "He move in space with minimum waste and maximum joy."
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Anyone watching the Wolves game? They just missed a penalty to go one up... thought the commentator was really taking the piss when he said "Jimenez with a really disappointing penalty in by far their most important game for decades". - way to rub it in.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I completely assumed that Atletico would win tonight - in fact I had them down as a team that might just do it. A lot of people don't like the way that they play and don't like them as a result (or so they say) but I've always had a sneaking admiration for them. Didn't watch the game today but it seems as though Leipzig had more of the ball, more shots and so on and just looked the more likely, They scored with a reaction header from close in after a short cross - think they scored at least one like that as they thrashed Tottenham, maybe it's something they deliberately go for, certainly very hard to prevent if they get it right, but also hard to execute I'd have thought.
Gutted for Atalanta yesterday, I did kinda watch that but my internet connection kept going down and it was really frustrating and impossible to watch - missed the Atalanta goal in fact - what I got from what i did see is that, with hindsight, their second half tactics of taking the pedal off the throttle a bit and allowing PSG more of the ball, were a mistake. It's a very fine margin of course but I think that at 1-0 it's always a risky tactic and if the equalizer does come (at any point) it's very difficult to readjust and to try and get the winner. Of course it's always a possibility that they were just tired, perhaps you can't just keep pressing and attacking that quickly for 90 minutes, especially against real quality opposition (which I think PSG are, although from what I've seen they are still maybe in the second tier overall behind Liverpool, City, Bayern etc an analysis which I'm sure really bothers now that they are in the semi for the first time in almost 25 years).
 

version

Well-known member
I've been caught out by the new schedule. I didn't realise how quickly they'd be running through the tournament. Just watching highlights now.
 

version

Well-known member
It's depressing how much of Messi's career's been wasted by Barca's board. It's been obvious they're the problem for years and they're somehow still there throwing ridiculous amounts of money around and breezing through managers like Chelsea at their worst.
 

version

Well-known member
Sid Lowe on Twitter: Since end of the 2014 window, by my calculations, Barça have signed 29 players for almost a billion euros. How many have been an unqualified success? Not one?
 
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