luka

Well-known member
You see the Barca game the other night? I hadn't seen anything from La Liga in a while and it was fucking appalling. The officiating was bad enough you'd think it was rigged.

The league's supposed to be losing a ton of money because of how bad it's gotten and Tebas, the guy in charge, is forcing all the clubs to have TV cameras in the dressing room and stuff. Madrid are the only team rich enough to tell him to fuck off and they're being fined 13m for it.
the latins are really corrupt as a rule. france less so but spain and italy mate, toatally fucked
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
i was just enjoying reading his list of demands in barney ronays colum im not allowed to link to
the guardian.com/football/blog/2023/aug/18/neymar-creative-genius-al-hilal-saudi-arabia

Great article

Neymar has announced that he is, like AJP Taylor before him, “excited to write history”. And no doubt excited to some lesser degree by his £138m salary, the three dedicated supercars (Bentley, Aston Martin, Lamborghini) plus four Mercedes G-Wagons and a luxury chauffeured van to be kept “available at all times”. Other non-negotiable demands include a house with three saunas, a pool “at least 40 metres long”, seven full-time workers, including a sous chef to work – keep up – with Neymar’s own head chef, plus, in a moment of semi-caricature, a guaranteed supply of açaí juice and Guaraná drinks in his fridge. Oh, and he needs a private plane. Plus all expenses for his 30-strong entourage to be covered by the Saudi state, also known, under what we must call Newcastle Rules, as Al-Hilal FC.

My favourite bit is the sous-chef to work with his own chef. Or maybe the plane and the expenses for his entourage. What do they do? Is their job to hang out with Neymar? How much do they earn?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Also good

Neymar has lived this life since he was 12. He is the ultimate butterfly on a wheel, albeit a butterfly who really loves being on the wheel, who wants to help make the whole world a bit more like the wheel.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
He should have seen how far he could push it "I want a 100m tall statue of me, made out of solid gold, that rotates so it always faces the sun and continuously sprays a fountain of crystal champagne out of its mouth".
 

entertainment

Well-known member
Tebas feels as though he's doing to the league what Bartomeu did to Barcelona. Just bad decision after bad decision. Running the thing into the ground.
I have a hard time getting my head around the transfer/salary restraints. Some say it's destroying the league, others say it's saving clubs from being run into the ground.

But apparently those rules are going uefa-wide soon?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
But if you don't allow megastar geniuses to have absolutely whatever they want, whenever they want then they'll go and play in SA where they very much can have it all, twice probably.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
It’s not coming home but Forest Rec must have about 2000 girls kicking footballs round

Refreshing point about today’s final was the lack of cheating and shithousing. It crept in a bit as the possibility of an England goal seemed to flutter, could they get to extra time etc

Better role models for aspiring athletes, none of the hubris. England couldn’t quite click today yet anything which gets kids out being physically active, with the possibility of moving up through age-group levels, can’t fault it - more please
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
Every other sentence about women's football agitates for the greater involvement of Capital, with the assumption that its more attractively civil demeanour will survive the taint of big money - this assumption is sexist; you just wait for the shithousing in store.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
It’s not coming home but Forest Rec must have about 2000 girls kicking footballs round

Refreshing point about today’s final was the lack of cheating and shithousing. It crept in a bit as the possibility of an England goal seemed to flutter, could they get to extra time etc

Better role models for aspiring athletes, none of the hubris. England couldn’t quite click today yet anything which gets kids out being physically active, with the possibility of moving up through age-group levels, can’t fault it - more please

Yeah Spain were too strong on the day.
 

version

Well-known member
With the obvious caveat regarding the nature of the organisation and their funding, City's recruitment's impressive. They know exactly who they want, refuse to be sucked into a bidding war and, if it's not happening, they already have several other options in mind. You also rarely get the sense they're gambling on a signing. Whoever they bring in will improve under Pep or be swiftly moved on.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
It was yeah. You do get a bit of a sense that when the ball comes to Busquets or Messi it's just so easy for them to step away from their marker and make whatever piss-take pass they want.

It's not that that is particularly surprising in that they have been doing that to players who are way better than these for the last twenty years, but I think the issue I have is that when you're watching a proper game and the attacker beats someone with an improbable piece of skill or picks someone out with a ludicrous Hollywood pass, part of what makes that skill or pass good is the fact that it was necessary, that that piece of invention was magically dredged up from out of the subconscious cos it was needed just then to solve that particular, unique problem.

But in an exhibition game a player does a trick not cos it's necessary but because they can. And watching the move above I can't help feeling we're more in exhibition match territory somehow.

Do you get that or is it just me?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I saw a headline today saying that Messi is already prompting a potential rule change in MLS, but luckily it's not some silly change to the rules of the game, but rather an off-the-field thing. They're basically talking about the salary rules which at the moment do seem kinda crazy. A salary cap but some exempt and if I understood quickly when I skimmed it some others are exempt in a different way or something... it sounds like a mess. Kinda like Olympic football where the players have to be under a certain age, except for a few exceptions. It must come from somewhere but in football terns I don't see how it makes any sense.
 

version

Well-known member
Do you get that or is it just me?

I get you, but I don't agree. You look at that goal and it's mostly first touch then Messi playing a ridiculous pass with three defenders on him and a fourth closing in. He could have passed to one of the two slightly behind him, but they were in more or less the same position as him with a bunch of defenders and the keeper in front of them and little chance of scoring.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Fair enough, I just saw it once on a small screen and that was the feeling that jumped out at me - but it was very much a feeling as opposed to an actual analysis of what happened.
 
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