Association Football 2023/2024 Discussion Thread

[Fight for Trump]

Nobody wants Kane at a £150m valuation. We're talking about a guy who isn't even that young and is injured half the time. Lukaku just sold for £97.5m, and Mbappe is reported to be available for £171m, albeit for much higher wages. Haaland enters the market next year for £64m, although his (and fat Mino's) wage demands will be insane and possibly beyond what English clubs other than Man Utd would be willing to pay.

[Fight for Trump]

Nobody wants Kane at a £150m valuation. We're talking about a guy who isn't even that young and is injured half the time. Lukaku just sold for £97.5m, and Mbappe is reported to be available for £171m, albeit for much higher wages. Haaland enters the market next year for £64m, although his (and fat Mino's) wage demands will be insane and possibly beyond what English clubs other than Man Utd would be willing to pay.

Manchester City probably would be better off waiting until next year and just paying whatever wages Ering Haaland wants rather than breaking both the transfer and wage bank for Harry Kane, in my opinion.

The problem is the wage structure, not the wage budget. Raiola demanded £820k p/w in wages for Haaland from Chelsea, which while may have been an opening offer, represents the kind of challenge it would be to sign him. No player in England earns anywhere near that kind of money, and it would shatter the wage structures of Man City or Chelsea. Players like Lukaku or De Bruyne would not accept earning half the wages of 22 year old Haaland. Man Utd could conceivably do it with their less talented squad and penchant for overpaying players, but even then we'd probably be talking more in the £500k range than the £800k range.

Also, just because the transfer fee would be fixed at €75m next summer, does not mean there won't be huge demands for sign-on fees, bonuses, agent fees, and wages to make up for the reduced fee and how every heavyweight club in Europe is going to try to sign Haaland.

If Mbappe, Ronaldo, or even Lewandowski show up on the market at the same time for "free", good luck finding oxygen in the transfer market for Harry Kane to make a move... he should've gone on strike to force a move now. Nobody on the continent wants him or could afford the fee right now, only 3 clubs in England are suitable destinations for him, and they will all be fighting for Haaland next year, relegating him to a backup plan at best. Players like Jonathan David and Patson Daka are going to become hotter and hotter properties too, and represent much safer investments with upside and sell-on value than Kane.

[Fight for Trump]

That 820,000 pounds per week is still less than what Kane is going to make wherever he goes, assuming anyone bids for him.

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Literally every single post you make in this thread (and elsewhere) is basically the exact opposite of reality. Do you know how many players earn that much in wages? That territory is reserved for Ronaldo, Neymar and Messi. Not even Mbappe earns that much at PSG, although he's been offered close to that amount in his contract renewal. In Ronaldo's case, Fiat subsidizes his wages, and all three of them have massive worldwide commercial appeal that is at least an order of magnitude greater than Kane's. (Just for comparison, fallen stars like Mesut Ozil, James Rodriguez, Isco, Gareth Bale, and Philippe Coutinho all have far more social media followers than Kane)

No club is going to pay Kane (or Haaland, for that matter, at least not now) anywhere near that much, especially not if they have to pay £100m+ to get him. About £400k p/w in line with other top earners in England is his max earning potential. Bale is on £600k at Madrid, but a) Real Madrid is Real Madrid, b) he is a Galactico, and c) he was (and is) more marketable than Kane. For reference, the most marketable British players going forward are probably Sancho and Mount.

[Fight for Trump]

Sancho over Rashford? Really?

As for Mount, you are right on that. That's my favorite British soccer player right now, Mason "Money Mase" Mount....he's cool and he has swag......

As for American players overseas, what about Christian Pulisic of Chelsea?

Rashford is definitely up there too, but I thought Sancho had a higher ceiling.

[Fight for Trump]

UEFA’s new seeding system once again producing some absurd groups (not that I’m complaining from an entertainment point of view). Group A really stands out as the group of death this year.

Group A is obviously outrageous (bad result against Leipzig and Man City or PSG could end up in the Europa League), but I think Group B is more the Group of Death, as every team is good enough to win the group. Group D is interestingly basically last year's Group B, which was the Group of Death, but with Sheriff replacing Gladbach, which obviously makes things a lot easier. Group C and Group G are actually very interesting and unusual groups for the Champions League.

[Fight for Trump]

Man City are World Champs.

Congratulations to the fans of Man City.

PSG is better than Man City in almost every single position.

Icardi > Jesus
Mbappe > Sterling
Messi > Foden/Mahrez
Neymar > De Bruyne
Verratti > Gundogan
Wijnaldum/Paredes < Bernardo
Gana = Fernandinho
Hakimi > Cancelo
Marquinhos/Ramos/Kimpembe > Dias/Stones/Laporte
Bernat = Walker
Donnarumma > Ederson
PSG Bench < Man City Bench

[Fight for Trump]

Man Utd are a legit good team. Full-backs are questionable, but Ronaldo should be getting excellent service from Sancho, Pogba and Fernandes. Now the world will see what a hopeless coach Solksjaer is, because they still won't win anything beyond maybe an FA Cup or Europa League.

[Fight for Trump]

The group stage of the Europa Conference League shows why we never needed a Europa Conference League. No real new names, just a landing spot for the same old names we're used to seeing in the Champions League and Europa League. I love the Europa League, but I am not remotely interested in watching HJK vs Alashkert competing for a nothing trophy they have no chance of winning anyway.

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Group E
Lazio [ITA]
Marseille [FRA]
Galatasaray [TUR]
Lokomotiv Moscow [RUS]

Now that's a group of death.

I love Lazio and Gala. Just need Zenit in the group.

[Fight for Trump]

Mikel Arteta needs to be sacked ASAP!

The issue is would any quality manager even want to replace Arteta?

Arsenal is definitely a poisoned chalice right now that no proven manager wants to touch.

What kind of top player would even want to join Arsenal other than to get a decent payday and live in London? They renewed Xhaka's contract after deciding to let him go, lol. And then he gets another stupid red card, which basically sums up the club. The squad is terrible and doesn't really belong in the top half.

[Fight for Trump]

Mikel Arteta needs to be sacked ASAP!

The issue is would any quality manager even want to replace Arteta?

Arsenal is definitely a poisoned chalice right now that no proven manager wants to touch.

What kind of top player would even want to join Arsenal other than to get a decent payday and live in London? They renewed Xhaka's contract after deciding to let him go, lol. And then he gets another stupid red card, which basically sums up the club. The squad is terrible and doesn't really belong in the top half.

Exactly

If it's to get some Championship level manager, may as well keep Arteta (who frankly I think has potential, it's just Arsenal are a poor side with a lot of off field issues)

I'm personally of the opinion that Stan Kroenke is the worst owner in the league, and if he doesn't sell, within 5 years Arsenal will get relegated

They might be able to get Sam Allardyce if they fire Arteta now, but I'm not sure that's upgrade...

Fat Sam coming into a club is an admission that the board thinks they are in relegation trouble.

[Fight for Trump]

Arsenal's not going to finish dead last, as I'm pretty certain they are better than Norwich City, but I'm pretty certain the Gunners are going to be relegated.

lol.

[Fight for Trump]

Kabak signs for Norwich! €4m loan fee with €14m option to buy, which represents great value imo. He was unfortunate to get loaned into the dumpster fire that was the Liverpool defense last year (which, of course, was an upgrade from the dumpster fire that was Schalke), and now he'll get a new start under another German manager.

As he and Demiral mature, along with Soyuncu and Celik, Turkey is going to have a formidable back line for the next decade at least.

[Fight for Trump]

Ilaix has gone to RB Leipzig for a mere €15 million. A real steal, and I can only assume that for whatever reason he was unhappy at Barcelona.

Crazy that the crown jewel of La Masia was let go for so little, but then again, he could go for free next summer. Leipzig and the Bundesliga should be great for his development.

[Fight for Trump]

The new Venezia kits are both amazing and hilarious. Like, wearing a football kit anywhere but a stadium or watch party is about the most uncool thing you could do, but you can definitely wear these and make a statement. This is literally how they're marketing them:



€90 kit for a bunch of randoms who have a high chance of going straight back down into Serie B are all sold out, LOL. I mean, Paris is sexy, but it's not Venice, and it's definitely not Venezia.
https://shop.veneziafc.it/products/home-shirt-21-22

This is probably going to be what the rest of their season looks like, but who cares when you're wearing that kit and even the Twitter looks like this:
https://twitter.com/VeneziaFC_EN/status/1431322768373686275?s=20

[Fight for Trump]

Huge upset in Asian World Cup qualifying, with Oman beating Japan away. They were 20 to 1 underdogs. Over the course of a 10-match round-robin, Japan should still qualify in what is definitely the weaker of the two Asian qualifying groups, but this should make things a bit spicy to start off with.

The other Asian qualifying group should be a lot of fun. Iran and South Korea are clearly the best teams, but Iraq and Syria are surprisingly good considering the circumstances of those countries.

[Fight for Trump]

USMT should not waste Pulisic's prime.....if they can't make serious inroads by now and 2026, it would be a waste....

Wasting his prime how? Pulisic is a great player (although not head and shoulders above the rest of the team), but it's a team sport and you can't win major tournaments with one player.

[Fight for Trump]

Must-win match for the U.S tonight in World Cup Qualifying, as they go on the road to take on Honduras in about two and a half hours.

They're playing their 3rd match out of 14.

[Fight for Trump]

Poor Ben Mee.

Burnley blew a 1-0 lead today against Everton.

Some Redditers are glad Burnley is 0-4 so far because of the town's "racism" and the blue-collar Tory lurch after Labor MP Julie Cooper lost in 2019....

lol

[Fight for Trump]

Sounds like I'll have to troll a my Mancunian colleagues at work about this tomorrow lol

Real Mancunians support City anyway. Man Utd might as well play in Dublin or London.

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Sheriff is amazing. A home win against Shakhtar to add to their home wins against Red Star and Dinamo Zagreb already this season. One goal scored by Adama Traore, and an assist recorded by Cristiano. This is almost a troll team. 🤣

[Fight for Trump]

Ninian Park had terraces in the Championship.

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Napoli have been very impressive. Back-to-back away 4-0 wins. It's over a month until their next truly tough match, too.

[Fight for Trump]

I guess all the "Arsenal is going to be relegated" talk is bunk.

You are the only person who posted about Arsenal getting relegated in this thread.

[Fight for Trump]

Instant classic tonight in Sheriff-Real Madrid. Not only a massively symbolic upset, but what a screamer to win it late on!

NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN!!!

Thoroughly deserved, too. There was an awful stretch in the second half where Madrid had no ideas and Vini Jr was just fishing for a penalty, which he eventually got. Of all the away grounds to get your first away win in the Champions League, surely Santiago Bernabeu tops the list.