General Football discussion II

[F9]

Continued from: http://www.revleft.com/vb/general-fo...5/index26.html

And after couple of great Devrim posts i was sad to split, but what to do?

OMONOIA

[Wanted Man]

The Maradona discussion is always a good way to determine who really "gets" it.

[Wanted Man]

Super Cup match between Ajax and FC Twente (0-1):

+ YouTube Video

Awful game, terrible keeper's error. Urgh.

[Andropov]

Last week was a pretty big day in Irish footie when Shamrock Rovers played Juventus in the 3rd qualifying round of the Europa League after knocking out Bnei Yehuda of Israel the round before.
For having such a weak national league its not often we get one of the biggest clubs in the world here but it was a great advertisement for the league from a fans perspective.
But in saying all that was delighted to see Juve beat them.
Heres a few videos of the game and fans...

+ YouTube Video

+ YouTube Video

[Wanted Man]

Cool stuff. There was this thread about football in Ireland about a year ago I think, which had some good posts. I'll see if I can dig it up later.

[F9]

Now tell me that this, dont seems weird to you too!


I mean wtf?If i was Raul, and saw myself in a mirror, i would wonder where the fuck that shirt came from, and where the fuck the white one is I cant believe how weird this photo seems to me, it seems like... he aint Raul

[Wanted Man]

So how would people here feel if their countries launched a World Cup bid? There is currently a joint bid of Belgium and the Netherlands for either the 2018 or 2022 tournament, but there is growing resentment against this.

Politicians in both countries are increasingly beginning to discover the downsides to hosting the tournament. FIFA officials will demand their own highway lanes for travel between stadiums, they do not want to give any of their billion-euro earnings to the host nations in taxes or VAT, they do not want any other brands besides sponsors within a 2 km zone around the stadiums, etc. Just like in South Africa, Sepp Blatter (or rather, his successor by that time) will basically become president for a month.

At this stage, it's becoming increasingly ridiculous that people like Cruyff and Gullit are involved in a campaign with little chance of succeeding; even if it does, you have to wonder whether you really want it. Another source of irritation is that in both countries, the decision to back the bid was taken by caretaker governments, because new governments have not yet been formed after the elections. Some Belgian politicians are now trying to discuss the countries' "bid books" before parliament after all, because these decisions should not be made without consulting parliament at all.

At the moment, I'd agree with them and say: fuck that shit. It's insane to host a World Cup as a purely nationalistic prestige project.

[F9]

If we could get WC we would benefit from one thing, we would get brand new stadiums But aint gonna happen, obviously, there would be worthless after the WC.

[ComradeOm]

At the moment, I'd agree with them and say: fuck that shit. It's insane to host a World Cup as a purely nationalistic prestige project.

Well yes, but it would be undeniably brilliant to have the World Cup (the World Cup!) in your country

That said, what is needed is for a high profile nation (like NL) to publicly rebuff FIFA and make it clear that all these extras (from draconian sponsorship laws to FIFA courts) are not acceptable

[Wanted Man]

Sure it would be cool, but you'd have to wonder what you want to concede to FIFA as a country. I agree that some of the larger bidding nations should make some clear conditions about this kind of thing. Among several nations, England is also bidding, and there is a joint bid between Spain and Portugal. They should take a stronger stance. Of course, chances are that in that case, they'll simply look towards other nations like Russia.

If all goes well, it would be pretty cool, but I think it's ridiculous if the host nations get nothing but expenditures. It will be interesting to see whether they will actually finish a new stadium in Rotterdam on time (otherwise, there won't be any stadiums with >80,000 capacity). It would also be a boost for the sub-top clubs if this gave them the opportunity to expand their stadiums further. And of course, the epitome of cool would be to see football in the old Olympic Stadium of Amsterdam again, especially when it's the World Cup.

We'll have to see how it goes. At the moment, I doubt the bid even has much chance. I don't think there's much truth to Lord Triesman's statements in May, but I do get the feeling that you need to play dirty to get a World Cup. You won't get there with a squeaky-clean environmentally-friendly 2-nation bid. But maybe that's just gut feeling. If it does fail, it would be nice to try and get the Euros again. In fact, with proper ambition shown, I'd say the Netherlands could do it all by themselves. Euro 2008 had 8 venues with >30,000 capacity. With two stadiums in both Amsterdam and Rotterdam and the one in Eindhoven, you'd only have to expand three more stadiums and you'd be done. It would be extremely easy to find three clubs looking to expand anyway (Twente, Groningen and Heerenveen for instance).

EDIT: I was reading up on this, and I saw that Spain and Portugal want a whopping 21 venues. Holy shit!

[F9]

4-1 and goodbye CL. We have europa league now, but possible teams are liverpool, juventus, galata, sporting, and a lot others powerful teams, we will have to be very lucky to get a decent draw, and decent means not one from top leagues...

[Wanted Man]

Too bad.

All our clubs are through. Ajax will play Dinamo Kiev for a place in the CL group stage. For the EL, it looks like this:

PSV: Sibir Novosibirsk
Feyenoord: AA Gent
FC Utrecht: Celtic
AZ: FK Aktobe

Far trips for PSV and AZ, to Siberia and Kazakhstan, respectively. Should be interesting.

[Tifosi]

What are Utrecht like to play Wanted Man?

[F9]

We are traveling also to Ukraine for the EL playoff WM, against Mentalist though, but i pretty much know nothing about this team..It aint one of the big and well known teams, who in the past had some good appearances, but i have heard they have builded a strong team.

[RotStern]

Who's excited for the Bundesliga!? SANKT PAULI!!! I hope I can be back in Germany soon enough for the SP vs HSV game. It's going to be awesome.

[Wanted Man]

What are Utrecht like to play Wanted Man?

I think they might yet surprise you (I assume you're a Celtic fan). Of course, Celtic are favourites, but anything can happen. Utrecht have put a pretty good team together this season. They were taken over by a major investor in 2008, and they've been pretty ambitious since then. I'd say their best player is Dries Mertens, the Belgian attacking midfielder. Great technical player. Some footage from last season:

+ YouTube Video

Also, the goals from Luzern vs Utrecht, their latest European match. Luzern were pushovers, though:

+ YouTube Video

We are traveling also to Ukraine for the EL playoff WM, against Mentalist though, but i pretty much know nothing about this team..It aint one of the big and well known teams, who in the past had some good appearances, but i have heard they have builded a strong team.

Well, if they're called "Mentalist", they're probably from the psych ward. I assume you mean Metalist? Looks like a typical Ukrainian team with several unknown Brazilians. You never know with them...

[Andropov]

Well, if they're called "Mentalist", they're probably from the psych ward. I assume you mean Metalist? Looks like a typical Ukrainian team with several unknown Brazilians. You never know with them...

Never under-estimate the Ukrainian League.
Some very talented Eastern Europeans go East instead of West and like you said WM a splatter of Brazilians and Argentinians aswell.
But the likes of Dinamo Kiev, Shakhtar, Dnipro etc are all decent sides and likewise for Metalist.
On a side not did anyone ever hear about how Shakhtar identify themselves as a kind of multi-ethnic club because of the ethnic composition of Shakhtar with peoples thrown togethor from all over central asia and the greater Eastern European region?
They see themselves as the Barca of the East, a city that is multi-cultured etc and primarily made of immigrants.

[F9]

Well, if they're called "Mentalist", they're probably from the psych ward. I assume you mean Metalist? Looks like a typical Ukrainian team with several unknown Brazilians. You never know with them...

haha yeah, my hand got to type my more known wordYeah, they are undoubtly better team, they have like 3x the budget, but with other teams we could play.. it was a good draw.They sold and their striker, which is good news for us but salzburg sold their striker too, and we got 5 from all the others

[Wanted Man]

Never under-estimate the Ukrainian League.
Some very talented Eastern Europeans go East instead of West and like you said WM a splatter of Brazilians and Argentinians aswell.
But the likes of Dinamo Kiev, Shakhtar, Dnipro etc are all decent sides and likewise for Metalist.

Yeah, that's why I said that "you never know with them", i.e. in the sense that they can really surprise you. Most people take these teams for granted, but over the past few years they've certainly played a bigger role in European competitions than Dutch sides, for instance. Let alone Scottish, Belgian, Scandinavian, etc.

They are definitely tough sides. It's no wonder that Martin Jol said that Dinamo Kiev were the toughest team that Ajax could draw for the next round.

On a side not did anyone ever hear about how Shakhtar identify themselves as a kind of multi-ethnic club because of the ethnic composition of Shakhtar with peoples thrown togethor from all over central asia and the greater Eastern European region?
They see themselves as the Barca of the East, a city that is multi-cultured etc and primarily made of immigrants.

That's pretty interesting. I didn't know that. An interesting new chapter in the story of a city that was founded by a Welshman, and was called "Stalino" in the past, and even allegedly "Trotsk" for a brief period.

[Andropov]

That's pretty interesting. I didn't know that. An interesting new chapter in the story of a city that was founded by a Welshman, and was called "Stalino" in the past, and even allegedly "Trotsk" for a brief period.

Dont quote me on this but I think that wealthy backer from Donetsk that backs Shakhtar is actually of Azeri decent, definetly not the ethnic Ukrainian Catholic the dominates Western Ukraine.