Roiling football blather

Beckham was a very good player but he wasn't the player casual fans expected him to be

Agreed totally different player to McManaman

version said:

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Good pass. If you got Ronaldo on the end of them it's a little bit more likely your passes lead to a goal of course.

A year or so back I wrote a long post (which I now can't find - maybe @version can help [though maybe best not to cos it will probably end up being totally different from how I remember it and make me look stupid]) about how it looked to me as though premiership clubs would dominate Europe for the next few years. If I remember correctly I think I said that the Italian teams seemed to be a level below, Bayern appeared to be going in the wrong direction and Barca were too crippled by the financial problems arising from the years of overspending deemed necessary to compete with Real at home and the prem sides in Europe - and to pay Messi's obscene wages.

I think I said that barring some kind of paradigm shift - eg Jeff Bezos buying Juventus and throwing his entire fortune into winning the champions league - the only sides which might be able to prevent this premiership hegemony were gonna be a) the billionaires at PSG, if they could sort themselves out and somehow switch from being a collection of superstars into an actual superstar team and b) Real Madrid cos they somehow always have money and they just know how to win, by hook or by crook, especially in Europe.

Anyway, shortly after I said that Real Madrid won the thing scraping past PSG and then City and Chelsea in extraordinary fashion after they looked dead and buried, then beating Liverpool in the final with a sucker punch despite being second best for most of the game thanks to an extraordinary performance from Courtois.

That wasn't what I'd expected although I guess it was broadly in line with what I was saying. Anyhow this time City have finally broken their duck in the CL and are clearly by far the best side in the world just now. Considering that West Ham won the Europa League too it's looking like the predicted premiership domination is now starting. I wouldn't bet against it being an all prem final in the CL next time. Real really need to rebuild - which, fair enough, they normally do pretty well - and PSG are showing no signs of the required development, so who is gonna stop that happening?

West Ham won the Europa Conference. More like the InterToto or the LDV vans of European football.
Seville won the Europa League - like they do almost every year.

at least one bookmaker would take a wager on the odds of how it could play out results-wise and with people throwing £ at crypto you'd be as well off lobbing 200£ at an accumulator

jenks said:

West Ham won the Europa Conference. More like the InterToto or the LDV vans of European football.
Seville won the Europa League - like they do almost every year.

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Oh yeah you're right... what is it with Sevilla?
To be honest, all those other cups feel like a wooden spoon really, not like in the good old days when you had the European Cup which was champions only, cup winners cup which speaks for itself, and the UEFA cup which was in theory the wooden spoon but which had all the second and third place teams - which are now hoovered up into the champions league - who often turned out to be the winners of their respective leagues that year making it a competition that was as tough as the European Cup proper.

Cup Winner’s Cup too, didn’t Spurs win it, memory fail

62-63 Spurs won CWC.

Transfer merry go round under way.
Mbappe looks like he’s off. That’ll probably alter where Kane goes. Arsenal paying for 100m for Rice looks extortionate. Will West Ham do a Spurs and waste the cash (we sold Elvis and bought the Beatles ffs) I imagine City will get any business they want done in the next month. Walker, McGuire a few others will drop down a level. And that’s before Newcastle spend money like a drunken sailor on shore leave.

Wild he's still this good at a week off 36. He could easily have stayed in Europe.

So many City players rumoured to be leaving. I've seen stuff about Gundogan, Bernardo Silva, Walker, Laporte, Mahrez and Cancelo's more or less gone what with the mid-season loan. They haven't all been crucial and Pep and the staff know what they're doing, but it's a lot of talent to lose.

Nations League final between Croatia and Spain's on Channel 4 atm. Currently 0 - 0.

Extra time.

WashYourHands said:

Cup Winner’s Cup too, didn’t Spurs win it, memory fail

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I remember after English clubs were banned from Europe for years they were finally allowed back - except champions Liverpool were still banned so there was noone from England in Euro Cup. Man Utd were in the cup winners cup though and I watched entranced as they waltzed through to the final v Barcelona. I remember before the game Koeman arrogantly said "Doesn't matter if it's Man Utd or Sheffield Utd, they will play the same" - which I guess means Sheffield would have kicked their arse too.

Alvarez is 23, he's won every possible club trophy possible for an Argentine club to win, he cane to City and has won every English trophy and the Euro ones available, he's also won every possible international trophy with Argentina. He's literally won every possible trophy already.

Saudi Arabia are throwing money at people atm. I've heard it's because they're trying to bolster their image ahead of a World Cup bid. Shame if a bunch of good players head over there, but I imagine that sort of cash is hard to turn down.

I dunno, I like to think at least some of them would stay in Europe and try and scrape by on 500k a week

Just reading Suarez is absolutely fucked. He's playing in Brazil atm and in so much pain he has to have daily injections and treatments. He should just retire at this point. Clearly run himself into the ground.