Football, Footie, Ball, FOOTBALL!

[Black Wizard]

Cali: I see what you're saying... Man U are crap!

Seriously, if your point is that Man U are doing better than (say) Bayern, you have invalidated it by pointing out the main flaw in your argument, vis. 'you can only beat what's put in front of you'. The comparison of points totals from different leagues is not a barometer of anything meaningful.

ps I'm perfectly willing to admit the Scottish league is not all that good and this year it's worse than most. Gretna and St Mirren are rubbish, not to mention the collapse of my beloved Hearts . Still, it makes Scottish overachievement in Europe and in internationals all the more remarkable, doesn't it?

What on Earth has happened to Hearts? Two years ago they finished second in the league and won the Scottish Cup, now they're crap!

And as to Man U - Bayern, if Man U are able to beat Aberdeen at Pittodrie in their forthcoming friendly then we'll know that Man U are better.

[mormont]

What on Earth has happened to Hearts? Two years ago they finished second in the league and won the Scottish Cup, now they're crap!

Mad Vlad drove off all the good managers and players. At the same time, he seems to have quietly dropped his original boasts and promises in favour of mediocrity. We sold Craig Gordon for £9m and how much has been invested back into the team? The answer shares its initials with the organisation who decided this demented idiot was a fit person to own a football club.

[Black Wizard]

Sorry, which organisation let Vlad buy the Jambos?

[Paddy]

SFA

Scottish Football Association

(And as Mormont alluded to, there is another use for that acronym

[Black Wizard]

I never knew the SFA had anything to do with it!

[Xray the Enforcer]

Ahem, German football has traditionally been quite attack minded, just not with the same flair associated with South Americans. May I suggest watching some Werder (well, maybe not right now...), Leverkusen or Stuttgart games instead of Schalke or Bayern? Though Bayern have on occasion played some nice football this season and may become even more watchable in the next (or, if I get my wish, implode spectacularly. Not gonna happen, but one can dream...).

Unfortunately, it was a lot of national team sleepiness (even the Germans were bitching at how lackluster the matches were), or the misery that is FSV Mainz.

[Jon AS]

Unfortunately, it was a lot of national team sleepiness (even the Germans were bitching at how lackluster the matches were), or the misery that is FSV Mainz.

Watching the national team was no fun from the mid nineties until Klinsmann took over in 2004, with very brief flashes of fun during the Völer years. As for Mainz, they acquired a certain cult-status during their brief stint in the First Bundesliga. Their coach, Jürgen Klopp, is one of the most highly rated ones of his generation in Germany (he was Bayern's second choice to take over from Hitzfeld at the end of the season), but if you were there before he took charge and got them promoted, that was probably not a very exalting experience.

[cteresa]

Technically, it's forbidden. But the rules also contain a clause that allows for beer (or any alcoholic beverage up to 5%) to be sold during games, if the local authorities agree that it won't have a negative impact on stadium security. I suppose you can guess what that means in practice.

You #$%@!!! I am envious as everything. Well I guess we managed to put our finger on the reason for the high attendance rates in the Bundesliga. Sounds nice, I got to admit. Queues for the bathrooms probably huge or else, strange smells?

That was Albelda. I believe the case was dismissed.

haven´t followed the all details. I think only way is up for valencia, but gosh what a fall they had. they got to be careful with summer selling, they might get a lot of money for a few of their players (depending on the euro maybe), but money might evaporate as well and leave them weaker.

Heh, the last time Löw announced something like that publicly, the Danish, who were the opponents for that friendly, got all up in arms, saying that had been under the impression they were going to play a full strength German team. I kind of sympathised, especially since games like that aren't much fun to watch.

nah, the greeks are unlikely to complain, maybe a higher chance of winning which they will like. People who bought tickets to see Cristiano Ronaldo might feel a bit sorry to not see him play, but that is football - and if they only go see and support Portugal because of one player, they are not real fans of Portugal by my book, my sympathy is not with them. ( though from what I know of portuguese immigrants, particularly in that france-germany-luxembourg-switzerland they would show up in masse for a under-17 game, sniff, right and proper. The one portuguese paper you can find reliably on the day it is published in that area, is A Bola. )

[Xray the Enforcer]

Alas, it was the bad years, all around (98-02). By the time Mainz got its shit together, I'd moved to Berlin, and stopped watching much football (my friends in that time were not Hertha fans). The one friend who had a TV, bought it for the 2002 WC.

[mormont]

I never knew the SFA had anything to do with it!

They have a clause in their rules saying that you must be a 'fit and proper person' to own a club, as do the English FA. However, neither organisation has ever prevented anyone from buying a club to my knowledge. There was some talk of using it when Giovanni di Stefano wanted to buy Dundee, but it was never tested as di Stefano (a man who makes Vlad look sane and reasonable) turned out not to have any money after all.

[Jon AS]

They have a clause in their rules saying that you must be a 'fit and proper person' to own a club, as do the English FA. However, neither organisation has ever prevented anyone from buying a club to my knowledge. There was some talk of using it when Giovanni di Stefano wanted to buy Dundee, but it was never tested as di Stefano (a man who makes Vlad look sane and reasonable) turned out not to have any money after all.

You know, German clubs may not be able to compete with English, Spanish or Italian ones financially, but at least our clubs can't be owned by a single madman. There's something to be said for that.

Alas, it was the bad years, all around (98-02). By the time Mainz got its shit together, I'd moved to Berlin, and stopped watching much football (my friends in that time were not Hertha fans).

So you moved just in time to witness Hertha's fall after their brief rise to (relative) glory. Good timing.

Or maybe it's really your fault...

[Xray the Enforcer]

So you moved just in time to witness Hertha's fall after their brief rise to (relative) glory. Good timing.

Or maybe it's really your fault...

(then again, I moved here and the NYC helmetball [aka gridiron] team did OK.)

[Black Wizard]

You know, German clubs may not be able to compete with English, Spanish or Italian ones financially, but at least our clubs can't be owned by a single madman. There's something to be said for that.

The quality of German goalkeepers could be improved, namely Wiese from Werder Bremen!

[Maltaran]

They have a clause in their rules saying that you must be a 'fit and proper person' to own a club, as do the English FA. However, neither organisation has ever prevented anyone from buying a club to my knowledge. There was some talk of using it when Giovanni di Stefano wanted to buy Dundee, but it was never tested as di Stefano (a man who makes Vlad look sane and reasonable) turned out not to have any money after all.

The only time I've heard of it in relation to English teams was when Thaksin Shinawatra bought Man City, but they decided that as he hasn't actually been convicted of anything they couldn't disqualify him.

Random trivia: thanks to his surname being similar to Sinatra, the fans have nicknamed him Frank.

[Jon AS]

The quality of German goalkeepers could be improved, namely Wiese from Werder Bremen!

I'll take Wiese over any English 'keeper.

And in general, German clubs produce good to great goalkeepers with great regularity. Right now Enke, Rost, possibly Kahn and even Wiese are as solid as one could wish, both Adler and Neuer (and maybe Rensing, he hasn't gotten a lot of games yet) look very promising. Löw could make Adler his first choice at the Euro and I wouldn't worry about it one bit.

[john]

Oh, one can hardly deny it. But as teresa says, there are very few really strong leagues in Europe - which is why the 'top four' are the top four, after all - and very few really competitive ones even including the top four. The Scottish league may not be not very good - but it's still considerably better than most (and certainly better than it was ten or even five years ago, despite the poor domestic season this year).

Agreed. It's better than comparable leagues in countries of a similar size and on the whole I think the SFA are quite a sensible FA. It both suffers and benefits from the presence of the old firm but it's still entertaining enough to watch and I don't see that changing soon.

[Black Wizard]

The domestic season would be improved greatly if Partick Thistle knocked Rangers out of the Cup. Plus if Mark Kerr wasn't such a damn fool then Dundee United would have won the CIS Cup.

Jon AS: did you see Wiese's howler's against Rangers?

[Jon AS]

Jon AS: did you see Wiese's howler's against Rangers?

Of course. As the sixth or seventh best goalkeeper in the country he is entitled to the occasional spectacular mistake. Werder could certainly strengthen their team by getting a better 'keeper, maybe if Bayern really are interested in Boruc they could snap up Rensing. Though if Hoeneß has suddenly decided he's not good enough for the number one spot he may not be the player he promised to be a couple of years ago.

[Calibandar]

Does anyone really have a clue what's going on with this Mascherano situation? He seems so unaware of the fact that he made at least 5 fouls in that game that could have been worthy of a yellow, and acts as if he genuinely believes he's been hard done by. Is he just an astonishingly good actor, or equally astonishingly naive?

Neither, he just seems to be a total asshole.

I was watching this on Match of the Day. I genuinely sympathize with referee Steve Bennet. He was way too lenient with Macherano anyway. The little Argentinian was right in Bennet's face for a couple of times, even in decisions where he was not involved with! No wonder he sent him off.

But most amazing was Mascherano's incredibly agressive behaviour once he'd been sent off. He was just about to beat Bennet before they restrained him. Extra suspension for that behaviour I should hope.

[cteresa]

I hate Nike. They really don´t get the point of TRADITIONAL NATIONAL colors. After loading us with a jinxed all black secondary kit which had to be offloaded halfway during qualification because it was bad luck and no historical reason for it at all ( but apparently they were trying to convince all their teams to have secondary black kits. Marketing I guess This is what you get for letting americans design your national team kit. Bah. I hope the FPF is really making them pay gazillions of euros) New kit is all red, a nice bright red (Am partial, Benfica thing) but where is the green? idiots. I hate Nike.

OTOH sometimes one has to love sports journalists. The under-21s called up a player from Zwolle, in the dutch second division, the nickname some sports paper came up at once "the ruud van nistelrooy of the dutch second division". Maybe it´s my flawed sense of humor, but I found it very funny.

Regarding that strength of leagues thing, I am not sure english league is any different than say the italian one. I just took a look at this year´s point classification and goal difference for england, spain and italy (nicely, all got the same number of 20 teams. Sorry I did not add other leagues, but about from portuguese, I don´t know them well enough to even consider thinking about it), sort of extrapolated to 38 games ( the spanish league is now 29 games all, italian 30, england 31, so you can not compare simply and fairly). First thing, spanish league has got the slightly higher goal average, 2.64 goals per game, England 2.60 goals per game and Italy 2.51 goals per game. Not a huge difference.

Second, goal difference. Consider it a personal quirk but I think it is probably important, a team which has a positive goal difference is IMO a team which is doing things right. Interestingly, England has got 10 teams with positive goal differences, while Spain and Italy got only 8 ( Spain got a couple zero goal differences though). If you want to check teams with goal differences of more than say 10 ( extrapolated to 38 games), England would have 8 teams like that, while England and Spain would have only just 5. Though now I think of it, it might be all Derby´s fault.

Serie A seems the most "compact", the highest points for bottom teams. Premiership seems to have the lowest points ( even not counting Derby) for bottom teams. And looking at points won you would assume the english UEFA cup teams would be more competitive than Spanish or Italian ones, after all you need more points and got more competition for those UEFA cup spots. and from my point of view while there is a difference in points-goal difference between top of the premiership and the rest, the "top"(looking just at points or goal difference) is larger, maybe 8 teams as compared to the other leagues. So, not sure if I really buy that the premiership UEFA cup teams should be worse than say Spanish ones. It might be just cultural adaptation being superior in Spain. Or of course it could be just Derby messing up data.