Roiling football blather
- Thread starter crackerjack
- Start date
-
- Tags
- alan smith 17 arsene the glum aesthete basic schoolboy errors benitez the sad clown borderline rivaldo shithousing boring cunt bromley spiritual healer chelsea :facepalm: dracula and his war council henry does an adam smith i am a holding midfielder of your face. jumpers for goalposts lads it's tottenham large samuel ole's at the wheel serie a epic fail shearer yawn shed ted square balls the special one traffordish waving imaginary cards
The FA Cup final is on Saturday, yeah? I think I will watch it. I don't watch much football though, can anyone give me a primer on this game? Who is the favourite? Any interesting narrative? Were these teams expected to make the finals or were there upsets?
Cheers.
Cheers.
crackerjack
Well-known member
Everton weren't, but they got through cos Utd fielded a weak team for the semis cos they'd had a sudden loss of nerve in he Premiership, and prioritised that instead. I wouldn't discourage anyone from watching football, especially those subsisting on a diet of inferior transatlantic sport -
- (baseball excepted, as ever), but Everton are a dogged, hard-to-beat low-scoring team. Don't expect a classic, but if Chelsea get ahead a comfy 2-0 win should be about right.
Watch out for what may be Drogba's last game in England (shame if so, for all his myriad personal and professional faults, he's a phenomenal player to have around) and any attendant wobblies. And maybe have a side bet on how long Tim Cahill takes to get booked, or even score.
don_quixote
Trent End
god baseball is awesome. especially when the reds are having their first good season in TIME
scottdisco
rip this joint please
i'm a Cubs fan.
it's ambivalent..
it's ambivalent..
crackerjack
Well-known member
Snap. Got a brother in Chi-town, Wrigley Field is second home when I'm over (though it's been a while...).
mos dan
fact music
i would read a baseball thread tho i'm afraid i wouldn't have a lot to contribute.. i've been to one sf giants game, have a yankees cap and my nyc cousin tells me i ought to be a mets fan, so i'm a bit confused in my allegiances, but i'm kind of interested by it. i don't get how you can get really passionate about it when you sometimes play your rivals seven times in five days, sometimes in the middle of a tuesday afternoon when everyone's at work and the ground is half-full.. where's the showmanship in that?
on topic, i watched the fa cup final with boomnoise and it was pretty underwhelming. i share the sentiments expressed about drogba, it would be a damn shame for the premiership to lose his talents, as flawed as his genius may be.
elijah just posted his prediction for next season's prem table lol http://twitpic.com/6dbaq any thoughts? i've no idea tbh, but as usual it's difficult to see the top four changing.
don_quixote
Trent End
dont be a yankees fan!!!!
baseball's gluttony of matches is great. i think it appeals to my crickety side.
baseball's gluttony of matches is great. i think it appeals to my crickety side.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Only just seen the CL final full highlights. What price to buy Iniesta now? The guy (obv along with Xavi) simply ran the biggest match on the planet. That kind of game sorts out the real greats from the overhyped...and Puyol, fucking hell, shoulda had two goals...
Also, duno if anyone's mentioned it yet, but United AGAIN escaped further goals by the width of the post, as they had done against Bayern and Chelsea (at a time when a goal would have been crucial, on both occasions). They deserve no further luck in CL finals!
Bizarrely, it seems that Fergie, despite the back-to-back Premierships, has a bigger problem now than he has had for years. Twice this season his side have been utterly destroyed, and no-one seems to be capable of rousing the team when things get really tough. Ferdinand and Vidic again VERY shaky against the best of the best.
When Tyldesley and Pleat are saying that the scoreline is a fair reflection of the match when you're losing, you know you've been hammered.
Also, duno if anyone's mentioned it yet, but United AGAIN escaped further goals by the width of the post, as they had done against Bayern and Chelsea (at a time when a goal would have been crucial, on both occasions). They deserve no further luck in CL finals!
Bizarrely, it seems that Fergie, despite the back-to-back Premierships, has a bigger problem now than he has had for years. Twice this season his side have been utterly destroyed, and no-one seems to be capable of rousing the team when things get really tough. Ferdinand and Vidic again VERY shaky against the best of the best.
When Tyldesley and Pleat are saying that the scoreline is a fair reflection of the match when you're losing, you know you've been hammered.
Last edited:
elijah's bang on! at least with the top 1... \o/
scottdisco
rip this joint please
Rich, did you ever find a Strand pub for the Cup final? (not a query i could have helped on i admit - the only boozer i go to around there with anything like regularity is the Coal Hole, no tellies there)
Kaka to Real Madrid it seems: question for anybody here, this may be a bit stupid of me but genuinely ignorant.
do Real get all their money just from the fact of their massive gates, commercial success etc?
i mean there's not any fabulously wealthy individual benefactors behind the scenes, is there? (a la Premiership today or Serie A at various stages.)
cheers
- the only boozer i go to around there with anything like regularity is the Coal Hole, no tellies there)Kaka to Real Madrid it seems: question for anybody here, this may be a bit stupid of me but genuinely ignorant.
do Real get all their money just from the fact of their massive gates, commercial success etc?
i mean there's not any fabulously wealthy individual benefactors behind the scenes, is there? (a la Premiership today or Serie A at various stages.)
cheers
IdleRich
IdleRich
Nah, settled for watching it round a mate's in Islington and then we walked down the Strand seeing as it was such a lovely day.
Not sure it's the whole answer to your question but I seem to remember from somewhere that Real were at one point hugely in debt to the local council or the city or something which magnaminously waived the debt and made them solvent again overnight. Does that ring a bell with anyone?
crackerjack
Well-known member
Yep, something to do with being absurdly overpaid for their old training ground or something....?
Basically, although Real aren't quite the devil in white that they were in Franco's day, some things don't change as much as they should....
That said, they do generate an even higher turnover than Man U, on much smaller gates, so their merchandising must be phenomenal. this was always the justification for Perez's galactico policy.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Apparently the prices for their merchandise are phenomenal too. But surely Man U are more popular in many of the markets outside Europe?
crackerjack
Well-known member
You'd think so, wouldn't you, but maybe only far east - do Latin Americans wear Real shirts?
Here's the turnover report
http://www.independent.ie/sport/soc...ected-to-pass-euro332m-milestone-1636919.html
here's attendances 2007-08 - seems I was wrong about that, although UTd keep adding bits, so they might be higher now
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_attendances_of_European_football_clubs
don_quixote
Trent End
i think the manchester united thing is partially a media myth. theyre obviously vastly popular but real madrid and barca are equally if not more so.
IdleRich
IdleRich
A year or two ago I was visiting my girlfriend in Oxford and I was asked to play in a kick around, but because I didn't have any kit someone lent me some shorts and a Barcelona top. On the way back from the game I saw some people in a car waving at me, then I went in a shop and the guy behind the counter offered me free stuff as a fellow Barce fan. It was really striking, even my girlfriend noticed the reaction to the shirt. If that's the support in Oxford then I suspect it's pretty massive everywhere. The (Kurdish) guy in the shop near where I live is a Barce fan as well.... the cunt.
nomos
Administrator
over here, pub football crowds are almost guaranteed to be mostly man u. i think it's the easiest, most recognizable, maybe even most outwardly anglophilic option, especially for sporto jock types who like to roam in packs. during the CL quarter finals man u fans had the run of the bar while us aresemen and women kept to ourselves in two side rooms. when it was chelsea and arsenal in the carling cup it was pretty evenly split. of all non-english jerseys around town though, i've noticed the most barcelona. (apart from the time i went to the pub in french colours only to find the place wall to wall dutch oranje)
of course now people are also more into the north american teams so you see a lot of toronto fc jerseys. the response to them has been enormous. side note: stupidest name in major league soccer has to be real salt lake city. i'd love to see something like tuscon wednesday in the future.
of course now people are also more into the north american teams so you see a lot of toronto fc jerseys. the response to them has been enormous. side note: stupidest name in major league soccer has to be real salt lake city. i'd love to see something like tuscon wednesday in the future.
Last edited:
scottdisco
rip this joint please
i think that the rags have got a bit of a monopoly in east Asia, although the shite do well too.. ...relatively speaking, Barcelona's gate is pathetic
(apologies for such mean-spirited refs. to United and Liverpool ;-) - anecdotally across north america and west europe, the big Spanish two are BIG, though other than, idk..)
(apologies for such mean-spirited refs. to United and Liverpool ;-) - anecdotally across north america and west europe, the big Spanish two are BIG, though other than, idk..)
Last edited:
scottdisco
rip this joint please
i didn't say in my previous (rather rude!) post but for some reason the final sentence Rich has here really cracks me up
(United commercially doing well in Asia must outweigh many clubs doing well across, say, latin America, no? demographics and all.)
Last edited: