2013-14 Club Soccer/Football Discussion Thread

[Franknburger]

In fact, the next big Tournament is already coming up: UEFA Women's Euro 2013 will be starting on July 10. It's only an Euro, so the last Women's WC finalist, Japan and the USA, do not participate, but nevertheless, it's an Euro ..

Sweden-Denmark (July 10), Germany-Netherlands (July 11) and England-Spain (July 12) make up for interesting opening matches in their respective groups. Italy will be taking part as well, Phil. 

[Franknburger]

First irritations at Bayern Munich: Guardiola has stated that while Mario Götze is a great player, he never really was interested in him, and he was contracted on initiative of President Hoeness and sports director Sammer.

Instead, Guardiola has been pressing Bayern leadership to contract Barcelona defensive midfielder Thiago Alcantara, so Xavi Martinez can move back into defence. Not that Bayern Munich has a bad defensive midfield with Bastian Schweinsteiger, Toni Kroos and Luis Gustavo. Anyway, Thiago Alcantara shall now be joining Bayern for 21.7 million Euros.

Interestingly, Guardiola's brother is Alcantara's personal advisor, which in not being taken too well by the German press.

[Franknburger]

Addendum to the Bayern Munich story: Guardiola will face a pretty hard time if he relegates Bastian Schweinsteiger or Holger Badstuber (who has recovered from his injury) to the reserve bench. Both come from Bayern's own youth, are therefore extremely popular with the fans, and should also have strong support within the Club's leadership. This means that the Thiago Alcantara purchase is especially putting pressure on Dante and Luis Gustavo.

Now, I am sure the two will do anything to not miss the 2014 WC in their home country Brazil, which means they need to regularly play Bundeslga and especially Champions League matches. If they see that possibility slipping away, they may - similar to Mario Gomez - try to leave Bayern towards another European club that plays internationally...

[Franknburger]

Surprise, surprise: It is rumoured that Luis Gustavo may leave Bayern Munich, who have an oversupply of midfielders after the Thiago Alcantara deal.
Wolfsburg has already voiced their interest, and sponsor VW might find a few extra millions to pay for him. However, as Wolfsburg will not be playing internationally in the upcoming season, I doubt that Luis Gustavo will be particularly interested in joining them.

[Franknburger]

Guus Hiddink has retreated from coaching Anschi Machatshkala, creating rumours that he may become the new Barcelona coach.

[Franknburger]

Barca needs to give way to Women:
Tomorrow's Bayern vs. Barca match (labelled Ulli Hoeness Cup) has been rescheduled to commence already at 18:30 instead at 20:30 as originally planned. German TV station ZDF, which holds transmission rights for the match, as well as for the Women's Euro, was not prepared to take the Sweden-Germany semi-final to be played tomorrow night out of the program and insisted on an earlier Bayern-Barca kick-off. Last Sunday, the Women's Euro Germany-Italy quarterfinal was played in parallel to the Telekom-Cup final (Bayern-Mönchengladbach). Both matches could be watched live on German TV, and the women won by 5 million to 1.7 million spectators.

On related news, Barca has officially announced Argentinian Gerardo "Tata" Martino (coach of the Paraguay team at the 2010 WC) as new coach, so the Hiddink rumour was just a rumour.
Luiz Gustavo has in an interview stated that he wants to stay at Bayern and take up the fight for a place among the starting eleven. But - I have heard such statements before...

[Franknburger]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/jul/26/arsenal-luis-suarez-liverpool

Arsenal preparing another bid for Suarez, due to interest from Real Madrid. Liverpool want £50 million for him though.

Tonight's German Supercup will be the first official Bayern-Dortmund encounter of the new season (live from 20:30 CET on German ZDF, so internet live streaming should be available).

It will be interesting to watch whether Luis Gustavo will be on the ground or at least on the bench (Wolfsburg has now launched an official bid for him). The same applies to Swiss national Xherdan Shaquiri, another frequently named potential Bayern sale.
On the Dortmund side, it will be interesting to watch Robert Lewandowski, whose request for changing to Bayern had been categorically turned down by the Dortmund management ("for no money in the world we will allow any other of out top players to change to Bayern this summer, and its not like we need cash after having to let go Mario Götze"). They seem to have taken the whole Götze thing quite personal - after all, Bayern sports director Matthias Sammer had been team captain when Dortmund won the Champions League in 1997, and Dortmund coach when they became German champion in 2002. 

[Franknburger]

Dortmund up 1:0 at half-time (Marco Reus in minute 6 benefitting from a poor save). Interesting Bayern line-up: Starke replacing Neuer as goalkeeper, Shaquiri replacing Ribery, and neither Martinez, nor Luiz Gustavo, nor Bastian Schweinsteiger on the green. Wonder if Guardiola is still testing (thereby underestimating the relevance of this showdown), or whether this is his first team (which smells like a lot of trouble ahead).

[Franknburger]

After Dortmund has destroyed Bayern  4:2, I think the Guardiola honeymoon will be over. Uli Hoeness and Mathias Sammer  will not take this defeat lightly, and start asking a few question (and if they don't, SportBild will be happy to step in): Why was the goal kept by Starke (whose mistake caused the initial Dortmund lead), and not by Neuer? Why did Ribery not play, in spite of his strong performance against Barcelona? Is Guardiola's new 4-1-4-1 system really the right system, considering how vulnerable it made Bayern against Dortmund's counter-attacks? And, more importantly, is Thiago (who lost the ball that ultimately lead to Dortmund's final goal) really the right choice in the defensive midfield, or could Martinez or Schweinsteiger  have given more stability to Bayern's defence?

It will be especially interesting to watch Bastian Schweinsteiger over the coming weeks. Many have linked Germany's quite disappointing showing in the 2012 Euro to his performance, conceding, however, that he was still recovering from injury at that time. Nevertheless, Ilkay Gündogan is more and more becoming a serious contender for the third position in Germany's central midfield (two of which, barred an injury, are more or less reserved for Khedira and Özil). Gündogan played great tonight, causing van Buyten's own goal. and scoring the beautiful 3:1 himself, while Schweinsteiger had to watch most of the game from the bench to only come in in the 67th minute.

[Franknburger]

This was a pre-season "friendly" in all but name. An actual pre-season 'friendly' is the only less relevant footballing event in existence.

A "pre-season friendly" watched live by 7 million Germans at home (plus possibly a few more in their holiday locations), at a time when there is hardly anything to report for the newspapers. Tell me more...

[Franknburger]

The short-list for Europe's footballer of the year is out. Choice is between Messi (1), Cristiano Ronaldo (2) and Franck Ribery (3). Runners-up included Arien Robben (4), Robert Lewandowski (5), Thomas Müller (6) and Bastian Schweinsteiger (7). The Bayern players obviously split up too many votes among them to allow any other than Ribery to make it into the final three.

If you look at titles won this year, the winner should be obvious. However, with this sort of elections you never know. I still don't understand why Messi, who did not win a single title last year, became World Footballer of the Year 2012 (it really should have been either a Chelsea player, or one of the Real Madrid players that made Spain European Champion). And this year, my favourite would have been Arien Robben, and if only for deciding the Champions League final.

On other news, Bayern has now officially allowed other clubs to enter negotiations with Luiz Gustavo, and first meetings between Gustavo and Wolfsburg representatives have taken place. Bayern also sold Emre Can, 19-year old captain of the German under-21 national team, to Bayer Leverkusen, with an option to buy him back in 2016. This was expected, they did a similar deal with Leverkusen for Toni Kroos a few years ago.
This means that another two players will have to leave Bayern for them to arrive at their 24 team members target. My bets are on Xherdan Shaqiri (though Bayern has already turned down a Schalke request for him), and one of their youngsters: Mitchell Weiser (19, came last summer from Cologne, and had already been leased out to Kaiserslautern last winter) Patrick Weihrauch (19, came in 2010 from 1860 Munich), or Pierre-Emile Höjbjerg (19, came last summer from Brondby Copenhagen).

[Franknburger]

Arsenal has placed a 40 million GBP offer for Uruguyan Luis Suarez (Liverpool). According to Suarez, his contract includes a clause that he may leave for this price, but Liverpool says they have only agreed to start negotiations if a 40 million GBP offer comes in.

[Franknburger]

The draw for the CL Playoff round fixtures is tomorrow. I'm hoping Milan get an easy opponent. We need three Italian teams in the CL this season. Schalke must lose.

I think we can agree to disagree here ...

[Franknburger]

Has Frankfurt had to sell a lot of their players? I know Freiburg has, which is unfortunate, and I'm worried that both will crash out of the Europa League because of it.

Yeah, I am also not sure about both of them. Eintracht Frankfurt played a superb first half of season, but did not do that well in spring and were lucky to make it into the EL. Considering that they still played 2nd division two years ago, I am not sure they are already ready for the EL, even with the team having remained intact.
Freiburg is a similar case. They have a superb coach who saved them from relegation in 2012/13, and lead them into the EL last year. The loss of certain players, especially Max Kruse, is definitely going to hurt them, but they have a good youth (Under-21 German cup winners in 2012), and their success is anyway more a team issue than depending on individuals. Nevertheless, they don't really belong onto the international stage. The last two times I remember them playing internationally, they did not make it very far on the European stage, and were relegated to the second division at the end of the season.

Speaking of exotic... Frankfurt win a trip to Azerbeidjan.

You do realise that it is not unproblematic to call Karabagh a part of Azerbaijan, do you ..

[Franknburger]

Unless CAS grants an injunction (possible) or even rules in their favor (unlikely, but the injunction would likely end up transferring the ban onto 14-15. CAS moves slow.) it's too late now for other Ukrainian clubs to move up and instead PAOK Saloniki, who lost to Kharkov in the preceding qualifying round, go up against Schalke and Maccabi Tel Aviv, who ought to have gone up against PAOK in the Europa League "play-offs" (the fourth and last qualifying round peeps! Don't swallow adspeak!), are through automatically. Lol ridiculous but, you know, better than letting someone get a free pass to the real $$$$$.

This is going to be a juridical mess. There is another club in the competition that has been banned by the UEFA for involvement in a match fixing scandal, namely Fenerbahce Istanbul. However, the Fenerbahce ban came so early that they could get a temporary injunction from CAS (the CAS will only rule on the case after the play-offs are over).

This leaves two possible developments:
1.) CAS is in time granting a temporary injunction to Kharkov as well, which should happen by Monday at latest, considering the first match shall be played on Wednesday night. In that case Kharkov is in again. As CAS is moving slow, their final verdict will most likely not be out before the group phase, so the injunction will de facto mean a transfer of the ban to 2014/2015. In that case, Fenerbahce could, even if CAS confirmed the UEFA ban, call for "equal treatment", i.e. demand their ban being as well transferred to 2014/15.
2.) CAS fails to decide in time on a temporary injunction in favour of Kharkov. In that case, the UEFA has created a "fait accomplis", and Kharkow is definitely out (the EC qualification round from Sept. 2-10 makes it impossible to squeeze in another CL qualifier before the group phase starts). In that case, however, RB Salzburg, the team thrown out by Fenerbahce in the 3rd play-off round, could request equal treatment and demand another chance to qualify for the CL group phase.

The fate of RB Salzburg is anyway quite interesting, especially in a scenario where they are ultimately thrown out by Vilnius, but only came to this by previously losing to UEFA-banned Fenerbahce....

[Franknburger]

Looks like we're going to snatch another from Arsenal's grasp: Luis Gustavo's agent says that Napoli is the Brazilian's preferred team.

God I hope not. Gustavo would be perfect for us.

Looks like both of you are losing. The German press reports that Wolfsburg has reached agreement with Bayern and will get Luiz Gustavo for 20 million Euro. Arsenal apparently was not prepared to pay Bayern that much. Official confirmation is expected before the end of the week.
Wolfsburg will now form a central Brazilian axis with Naldo, Gustavo, and Diego. Especially Naldo is said to have convinced his national team colleague Gustavo to join Wolfsburg.

[Franknburger]

CAS deciding not to touch Kharkov case. Twice, actually. (Kharkov did a last-refuge "new evidence" appeal after the first anti-injunction decision.)

Will hear arguments in the Fener and Besiktas cases the next couple days, rule on Fener the day before the draw and on Besiktas the day after. Yeah, I very much doubt they win their matches and then get barred for this season.

There is trouble ahead anyway for CAS. I don't think the UEFA (and some other sports associations) will much longer accept undue delays in decision making that potentially endanger competitions as profitable as CL and EL. So, unless the CAS speeds up their procedures, UEFA may be tempted to set up their own court of appeal. [Remember, from this season on, financial fair play will become a major issue, and UEFA will most likely try to set some drastic examples (Real? Man City?) in order to get the rules straight from the beginning].
The fact that CAS has already declined Kharkow's appeals indicates that they are well aware of that pressure. Juridically, it does not make sense to grant temporary injunctions in favour of the Turkish clubs, but not in the Kharkow case. If (as it appears) CAS is already bowing in to UEFA pressure, they will probably also confirm the Fener and Besiktas verdicts.

[Franknburger]

Serie A starts up tomorrow with Milan vs. newly promoted Hellas Verona, a team with notoriously racist fans so everyone will be watching for "incidents" especially with Balotelli.

Verona also has - surprise! - a Lega Nord Mayor who is stirring stuff up, claiming Balotelli is a troublemaker. That said, his comments were more about Mario antagonizing the opposition (which he undoubtedly does) and he urged Hellas fans not to start trouble with any black players. He even supported closing sections of a stadium if racist chanting is coming from only a few individuals.

If I understand correctly, the Italian League has started a major campaign against racist fans, and also fined Roma heavily for racist incidents. There is a bit of reporting on it here in Germany, but not in much detail, so maybe you, Phil, or other Italians reading this could fill us in a bit more.

[Franknburger]

With the transfer period nearing its end, throw-outs may get in focus. This especially concerns Hoffenheim who,  after barely avoiding relegation last season, have placed a number of players in their so-called "training group 2",which trains separately from their Bundesliga team. The group includes some illustrious names such as keeper Tim Wiese, former Dutch national defender Edson Braafheid, and former Swiss national  Eren Derdiyok.
Wolfsburg has mostly finished the post-Magath clean-up, but attacker Patrick Helmes (13 nominations to the German national team) is still up for sale.
Hamburg is desperately trying to get rid of Serbian national Gojko Kacar, plus a few other midfielders (Norwegian national Per Skjelbred, and Croatian national Ivo Ilicevic are frequently mentioned, alongside less prominent players such as Valmir Nafiu and Robert Tesche). Following this week's discussion about his two-day trip to Mallorca after his team's 1:5 loss against Hoffenheim, defender Dennis Aogo (12 matches for Germany) may become for sale as well.

In the meantime, there had be some speculation whether Schalke might be interested in buying Lukas Podolski, but Arsenal coach Wenger has already ruled out that possibility after Podolki's gala against Fulham.

[Franknburger]

I think I know which CL group will be discussed most here on the Forum. Hint: It won't be Group G, sorry Tender

Otherwise, Stuttgart has just managed to concede a completely unnecessary goal in OT,  drawing 2:2 with Zagreb, so they did not make it to the EL group stage

[Franknburger]

Quite a number of surprises in the EL playoffs aside from Rijeka throwing out Stuttgart. Also out:

Spartak Moscow (2:4 against St.Gallen - Grüezi!)
P. Belgrad (3:0 loss at Thun - Grüezi!)
Udine (1.1 against Liberec)
Nice (1:0 against Limassol wasn't enough)
St. Etienne (0:1 against Esbjerg)
Novi Sad (2:1 loss at Tiraspol)
APOEL Nicosia (1:2 loss to Waregem)

.. and a few more surprises in the making

Feyenoord behind 1:2 at home against Kuban Krasnodar
Braga 0:1 behind against Panduri Targu Jiu (no, they are not from Japan, they are from Romania!)
Firenze 0:1 behind against Grasshopper Zürich (though still leading by away goals)

Safely through: Frankfurt, RB Salzburg, Rapid Wien, Dynamo Kiev, Spurs, Swansea, St. Liege, Genk, Maccabi Haifa, Rubin Kasan, Trabzonspor, Besiktas, Sevilla, Estoril

[Franknburger]

It's kind of a shame we have to face Dortmund since I usually end up disliking any team that has the audacity to face us.    I've come to have a small appreciation for Dortmund (to the extent that I can appreciate any team that isn't one of my own). My likely future disgust for them aside, it will be neat to see Napoli play in Dortmund. That's a great atmosphere with incredible choreography. I really like the "Yellow Wall" or whatever. Plus, Italian teams have a history of doing amazing things there so...

.. and there is quite an Italian, especially Southern Italian, community in Germany. Won't be like a Turkish team playing there, but probably close to it. Napoli just needs to make sure they don't run up in blue, otherwise they might be mistaken for Schalke ...

[Franknburger]

Schalke starts spending the CL money: After loaning defender Dennis Aogo from Hamburg, they have now bought Kevin-Prince Boateng.
Attacker  Eren Derdyiok returns to Bayer Leverkusen on a one-year loan from Hoffenheim.

The lottery for Fener's EL spot was won by APOEL Nikosia, which now will be facing Frankfurt, Girondins Bordeaux and Maccabi Tel Aviv in the EL group phase. Freiburg will play Sevilla, Estoril and Liberec.

EDIT: I almost missed that the CAS has now also confirmed the UEFA verdict against Besiktas. The lottery for the vacated EL spot was won by Tromsö.

[Franknburger]

Teams by country:



The UK has actually 5 teams, but in football Scotland is a "country" on its own.

with Europa League added

Scotland 1+0
England 4+3
netherlands 1+2
belgium 1+3
france 2+2
spaind 4+3
portugal 2+3
norway 0+1
sweden 0+1
denmark 1+1
germany 4+2
switzerland 1+2
austria 1+2
italy 3+2
poland 0+1
czech 1+0
slovakia 0+1
slovenia 0+1
croatia 0+2
romania 1+1
bulgaria 0+1
greece 1+1
cyprus 0+2
turkey 1+1
israel 0+2
moldova 0+1
ukraine 1+3
russia 2+3
kazakhstan 0+1

Note: Swansea qualified through an English competition and has therefore been listed as an English team.

Map update, please - a good opportunity, b.t.w, to return Corsica to France

The lottery for Fener's EL spot was won by APOEL Nikosia

While Besiktas's was given to the team they defeated in the last round, Tromsö.

Turkey('s other clubs) got buggered by the UEFA-CAS interplay.

Which could provide for some interesting discussion within the Turkish league..

[Franknburger]

What a final! And what a classy revenge for 2012!