Ultimate Football (Soccer) Thread (2011-2012)

[Disserbia]

Congrats Spain.

And with this, I guess the season is over.

Next thread? It's somewhere around, isn't it?

I really don't want to start thinking about World Cup qualification.

[The Blaatschapen]

If you give Gibraltar back they might give you one of their trophies.

maybe we'll be lucky and their plane will crash on the way home

Really?

I mean, really?

Fuck that. No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surinam_Ai ... _the_crash
Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superga_air_disaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_air_disaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Lokom ... r_disaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Zambi ... r_disaster

Ugh.

[Risottia]

Congrats Spain.

And with this, I guess the season is over.

Next thread? It's somewhere around, isn't it?

Well, on August 11th Juventus and Naples will play for the Supercoppa Italiana in Beijing...

[Risottia]

maybe we'll be lucky and their plane will crash on the way home

Really?

I mean, really?

Fuck that. No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surinam_Ai ... _the_crash

Ugh.

Double fuck that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superga_air_disaster

[The Blaatschapen]

Congrats Spain.

And with this, I guess the season is over.

Next thread? It's somewhere around, isn't it?

Well, on August 11th Juventus and Naples will play for the Supercoppa Italiana in Beijing...

Which is part of the new season, right?

At least our Johan Cruijffschaal is part of the new season. It's considered to be the opening of it.

[The Blaatschapen]

Really?

I mean, really?

Fuck that. No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surinam_Ai ... _the_crash

Ugh.

Double fuck that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superga_air_disaster

Yeah, I edited my post after I saw that there were more flight disasters involving soccer players.

I consider such statements to be trolling or at least in very bad taste.

[Risottia]

Congrats Spain.

And with this, I guess the season is over.

Next thread? It's somewhere around, isn't it?

I really don't want to start thinking about World Cup qualification.

Well, at least Spain and Italy can't end up in the same round.

[Risottia]

I consider such statements to be trolling or at least in very bad taste.

Yup. Extremely bad taste.
I mean, what the fuck, I'm Italian and I'm not angry at Spain for beating my side (and deserving to do so).

[Risottia]

Well, on August 11th Juventus and Naples will play for the Supercoppa Italiana in Beijing...

Which is part of the new season, right?

At least our Johan Cruijffschaal is part of the new season. It's considered to be the opening of it.

*checks* Yeah, I think you're right. The Supercoppa opens the 2012-13 season.

[Cromarty]

This Spain squad has to be in the discussion for best side in history, right? I mean, they at least belong in the conversation, wouldn't you say?

Nope. Just as you can't compare the current Barcelona side with that Ferenc Puskas-led Real side of the 50s or the team United had in the late 50s, this Spain side wouldn't be able to cope with Pele's Brazil or Cryuff's Holland.

Imagine Torres trying to beat a defender on a crap pitch in heavy boots using a ball that's like 4 times heavier than the current ones.

And the defender can muller him, just cos.

[Cromarty]

Next thread? It's somewhere around, isn't it?

Ta da

[Scholencia]

Congrats Spain.

And with this, I guess the season is over.

Next thread? It's somewhere around, isn't it?

If someone is interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80 ... -off_round

and in 2 days the EURO u-19 is starting

[The Icemark]

This Spain squad has to be in the discussion for best side in history, right? I mean, they at least belong in the conversation, wouldn't you say?

Nope. Just as you can't compare the current Barcelona side with that Ferenc Puskas-led Real side of the 50s or the team United had in the late 50s, this Spain side wouldn't be able to cope with Pele's Brazil or Cryuff's Holland.

Imagine Torres trying to beat a defender on a crap pitch in heavy boots using a ball that's like 4 times heavier than the current ones.

And the defender can muller him, just cos.

I think you have to remember that the players are trained to a lot better standard today. If you put this spanish team against the old Brazil or dutch teams, the spanish team would easily win. But whose to say that if the Brazilian and dutch sides were trained in the same way as their modern counterparts they wouldn't be a match for them

[Cromarty]

If you put this spanish team against the old Brazil or dutch teams, the spanish team would easily win.

That's just not even true.

Stanley Mathews is easily one of the best, if not the best, dribbler of a ball ever, and would run rings around Messi, Ronaldo et al with a football from his era, which the pampered showponies would barely be able to move.

I'd love to see the current Spain team playing in old spiked boots, with a heavy leather ball, on a crap pitch, in the rain.

[Nazis in Space]

Congrats Spain.

And with this, I guess the season is over.

Next thread? It's somewhere around, isn't it? :p

Well, on August 11th Juventus and Naples will play for the Supercoppa Italiana in Beijing...

Think of it as modern colonialism, rather than a desperate attempt to earn chinese money *nods*

[Nazis in Space]

No team preceding the late eighties would've anything even remotely resembling a miniscule opportunity of a chance at beating a modern team with similar achievements. The changes in training methodology and playing style (The latter caused by the former) are staggeringly significant.

The sheer lack of speed, off-ball movement, or pressing one notices when watching games from the 1950s or 1960s, to a lesser extend still in the 1970s is not just remarkable, it is, in a way, outright shocking. Frankly, the idols of old, regardless of whether they're called Andrade, Walter, or Pelé, would - without modern training methodology - be losing a metre for every two of them ran by their opponents, if they're lucky. They'd be hilariously outpassed. Their slowness when it comes to controlling a ball they're receiving would essentially lead to them losing it pretty much instantaneously.

It'd be hopeless.

[Forsher]

No team preceding the late eighties would've anything even remotely resembling a miniscule opportunity of a chance at beating a modern team with similar achievements. The changes in training methodology and playing style (The latter caused by the former) are staggeringly significant.

The sheer lack of speed, off-ball movement, or pressing one notices when watching games from the 1950s or 1960s, to a lesser extend still in the 1970s is not just remarkable, it is, in a way, outright shocking. Frankly, the idols of old, regardless of whether they're called Andrade, Walter, or Pelé, would - without modern training methodology - be losing a metre for every two of them ran by their opponents, if they're lucky. They'd be hilariously outpassed. Their slowness when it comes to controlling a ball they're receiving would essentially lead to them losing it pretty much instantaneously.

It'd be hopeless.

Two different worlds and two different threads.

[TaQud]

we can talk about the MLS soccer...

[The Icemark]

If you put this spanish team against the old Brazil or dutch teams, the spanish team would easily win.

That's just not even true.

Stanley Mathews is easily one of the best, if not the best, dribbler of a ball ever, and would run rings around Messi, Ronaldo et al with a football from his era, which the pampered showponies would barely be able to move.

I'd love to see the current Spain team playing in old spiked boots, with a heavy leather ball, on a crap pitch, in the rain.

I'm not talking about playing with old boots or ancient balls. Read my post again. Read it properly:

I think you have to remember that the players are trained to a lot better standard today. If you put this spanish team against the old Brazil or dutch teams, the spanish team would easily win. But whose to say that if the Brazilian and dutch sides were trained in the same way as their modern counterparts they wouldn't be a match for them

[Central Lothian]

Congrats Spain.

And with this, I guess the season is over.

Next thread? It's somewhere around, isn't it?

And when does the next season begin? Tomorrow, with the First Qualifying Round First Leg of the 2012/13 Champions League (apparently, UEFA left somebody in Switzerland whilst everybody else was in Poland or Ukraine).

[Homelands our]

Congrats Spain.

And with this, I guess the season is over.

Next thread? It's somewhere around, isn't it?

And when does the next season begin? Tomorrow, with the First Qualifying Round First Leg of the 2012/13 Champions League (apparently, UEFA left somebody in Switzerland whilst everybody else was in Poland or Ukraine).

A San Marino team gets hammered.

[Northern Sunrise Islands]

we can talk about the MLS soccer...

MLS isn't that football league that has around two competitive teams and other seventeen jocks?

[Kinda Sensible people]

we can talk about the MLS soccer...

MLS isn't that football league that has around two competitive teams and other seventeen jocks?

That's hardly fair. MLS is not the league it was ten years ago. While it is obviously not yet at the level of the EPL, numerous players of mid-table EPL quality now play in the United States, rather than in Britain. Parity isn't always great, but the league is still alive because of it.


And, for the record, there are 17 competitive teams. And Portland and Vancouver.

[Northern Sunrise Islands]

MLS isn't that football league that has around two competitive teams and other seventeen jocks?

That's hardly fair. MLS is not the league it was ten years ago. While it is obviously not yet at the level of the EPL, numerous players of mid-table EPL quality now play in the United States, rather than in Britain. Parity isn't always great, but the league is still alive because of it.


And, for the record, there are 17 competitive teams. And Portland and Vancouver.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I am all for the development of football at United States of America, but to be sincere, we all know that the only way to consider the tournament disputed is with that format of play-offs that normally does not work coherently. And I'm not even comparing it to Europe. I'm comparing it to South America, where half of the stars at the EPL teams normally are formed.

[Osarius]

I'm comparing it to South America, where half of the stars at the EPL teams normally are formed.

I think that's a slight exaggeration at best. I can think of precisely three South American players at Villa in the past 10 years, and if I were to list every notable South American footballer to have played in the Premier League, I'd bet good money that it wouldn't be a long list.

You'd be right in saying the MLS is weak compared to South American leagues, though. That's not an exaggeration. I think comparing the MLS with South American leagues is a bit unfair though, really. Considering its not even 20 years old yet, I think the MLS is a decent league, and its improving rapidly. The playoff system -- as silly as I think it is, personally -- just makes it more accessible to American sports fans I guess, since that's the norm in American sports, isn't it?