Association Football 2020/21

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Two contenders for Game of the Day in my opinion.

Club Brugge's 2-1 victory over Zenit St. Petersburg on a stoppage time goal by Charles De Ketelarae, and Manchester United's 2-1 victory over Paris Saint Germain, on a late goal by Marcus Rashford.

Man Utd get a penalty, Fernandes misses it, only for VAR to catch Navas off his line, so Fernandes retakes and scores it. You can’t make it up. I’m really starting to think that there’s something fishy about all these pens they get.

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Man I wish Parma-Spezia is an X!

Also, Romelu Lukaku is just such an Unbeatable Titan, so to speak. Forza Inter!

Tempted to go X2 on it, even. Spezia played pretty well against a Fiorentina team that is much better than Parma. I don't think they're necessarily favored, but I think they have a slightly better chance than the odds suggest. If Parma's odds were more like 2.25, I may be more tempted by them.

Also, I was really impressed at how quickly Lukaku picked up Italian. Sure, he may have linguistic talent, and learning Italian isn't that hard for a French speaker, but it shows the kind of hard work he's done at Inter.

Just listened to a Lukaku interview and yes he's picked up Italian pretty quickly!

I must say that my favourite heavy-scoring forward in Serie A is Ciro Immobile, because his scoring average - especially with Lazio - is simply crazy (at least, crazy if your name is not Cristiano Ronaldo) and he is a staple of the Italian national team.

Lukaku speaks 8 languages, so I suspect he was able to pick Italian up so quickly partly because he’s a natural linguist.

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Good win for Arsenal today - amazingly the first time in almost 6 years we’ve beaten a ‘Big Six’ club away, and 16 years since we beat Man Utd at Old Trafford. I remain cautiously optimistic about the direction of the club.

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Will Arteta be able to stay in his job until the new year if he loses at Goodison tomorrow? As stern of a test Everton will be, it won't get any easier with Man City and Chelsea coming up... Let's be real, even as an Arteta admirer, 15th in December is a disgraceful position for the 3rd-biggest club in England.

Anyway, I have Everton-Arsenal 1 as one of the best value bets for tomorrow. Southampton-Man City 1X, Fiorentina-Verona 2, Leverkusen-Bayern 1X, Schalke-Arminia 2, VVV-Venlo-Twente 1X are also pretty good, imo.

I do hope Arteta stays, as I think he actually has some sort of long-term plan/philosophy. Obviously our performances so far have been appalling, but I think that they are more indicative of bad luck and blips in form than longer-term structural problems.

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Tottenham vs. Marine today in the FA Cup, which I believe is the biggest ever difference in tier of any FA Cup tie in history. I hope it doesn’t turn too ugly...

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Liverpool's in a bit of a cold spell. They've dropped to fourth in the Premier League, and Manchester United just knocked them out of the FA Cup.

Liverpool. Is. Not. A. Very. Good. Team.

Man City is the only truly great team in the Premier League, in that they have complete balance and depth. Liverpool over-performed the last couple seasons because the game had yet to fully catch up with Klopp's tactics, (credit to him for that, of course) but since the restart, they've been far from unbeatable. You would have to say, as flawed as Man Utd's squad is, and as much as they've grossly overpaid for many of their players, they have the better team, although they are being managed by a clown who is way out of his depth.

I wouldn’t say Man U are better than Liverpool. Fernandes is world-class, as is Pogba when he can be bothered, but their defence is a joke.

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Liverpool's in a bit of a cold spell. They've dropped to fourth in the Premier League, and Manchester United just knocked them out of the FA Cup.

Liverpool. Is. Not. A. Very. Good. Team.

Man City is the only truly great team in the Premier League, in that they have complete balance and depth. Liverpool over-performed the last couple seasons because the game had yet to fully catch up with Klopp's tactics, (credit to him for that, of course) but since the restart, they've been far from unbeatable. You would have to say, as flawed as Man Utd's squad is, and as much as they've grossly overpaid for many of their players, they have the better team, although they are being managed by a clown who is way out of his depth.

All of their senior center backs are out, so their best options in that position are two midfielders and a 19-year-old who was playing sixth-tier football last season. I don't know of any team that would perform well under those circumstances.

They were defensively suspect post-restart even with Gomez and Van Dijk, who is extremely overrated. Maguire, on the other hand, is perhaps underrated, in that he's not a garbage player at all, rather just not worth his price tag, something he does not control. But how many teams in Europe, let alone England, really have two great central defenders right now? For me, it's basically just Man City and Juventus. (both have 3) It's no surprise both have such standout defensive records.

Maguire is not underrated, if anything he is overrated. He is very immobile, which he makes up for by blatantly grabbing hold of and wrestling attackers. Refs sadly often overlook this, and he’s lucky not to give away more penalties.

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Fat Sam parking the bus against freaking Sheff Utd, lol. Arsenal also very unlucky with that outrageous penalty and red card. Pepe's goal was a contender for goal of the season so far, imo.

Yeah, I’m not usually one to blame my team’s loss on refereeing decisions, but Craig Pawson’s performance was a travesty. It wasn’t a penalty (in fact the Wolves player accidentally kicked Luiz), and even if it was, it was a never red card under the double jeopardy rules, as Luiz clearly did not intentionally foul his opponent. As for Leno’s red card, I don’t think it was a denial of a clear goal scoring opportunity, and this is the only grounds for sending a player off for handball. A real shame, because we played very well in the first half. This is one of the rare occasions when the defeat is in no way on the players or manager, but solely due to an officiating nightmare.

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Yeah, I’m not usually one to blame my team’s loss on refereeing decisions, but Craig Pawson’s performance was a travesty. It wasn’t a penalty (in fact the Wolves player accidentally kicked Luiz), and even if it was, it was a never red card under the double jeopardy rules, as Luiz clearly did not intentionally foul his opponent.

The double jeopardy rule only applies when the defender makes an attempt to play the ball, so ironically, David Luiz might've been better off taking down Willian Jose, which makes the whole thing a farce. I don't blame the ref for the decision made in real-time, but if that is how VAR is going to interpret the double jeopardy rule, it needs to be rewritten.

I know that “attempt to play the ball” is the broader rule, but apparently the Premier League’s directive to refs includes “intent”. Either way, what happened was ridiculous.

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The early Europa League matches were mediocre, but the late ones were amazing! Ajax and Rangers deserved their wins, and I think Benfica were slightly more deserving of a win than Arsenal, but a draw is fair. (I bet on Benfica to win, so it would've been nice) I have to go back and watch Molde-Hoffenheim later.

Yeah, Rangers-Antwerp was fantastic! I have to disagree with you on Arsenal-Benfica, I think Arsenal were clearly the better side, with a number of golden chances which went begging.

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I admit to being pleasantly surprised that a relatively shorthanded Real Madrid side was able to beat Atlalanta 1-0 in today's Champions League match.

Um... Madrid was shorthanded? Atalanta was literally down a man (one of their better players, too) for the vast majority of the match. Do you even watch sports, or do you just look at a score on ESPN and talk about it as if you know something?

Real had only 13 first-team players available for the match due to injuries. They were shorthanded.

They played basically a top choice XI against 10 men for 75 minutes.

Isco at center forward and Lucas at right back is hardly a "top choice XI," even by the diminished standards of post-Ronaldo Real Madrid.

Isco was a False 9, a position he's played before, not a 9. That team, on paper, was better than the Atalanta team even before Freuler got sent off. The only player that dressed for Atalanta that could've made it into that Madrid team was Zapata, and that's only because there was literally no competition for his place. Madrid still had the heartbeat of their team - Kroos, Casemiro, Modric - plus a solid back four and good wingers.

You cannot describe a side as "shorthanded" when they are playing against a side that is literally shorthanded. No surprise, as anyone who refers to Real Madrid as simply "Real" clearly knows nothing about football. (La) Real refers to Real Sociedad. (El) Madrid refers to Real Madrid. (of course, your other posting history is a dead giveaway of your capacity to understand things in general)

To be fair, while that is the case in Spain, in England nearly everyone, including those who know a lot about football, refers to Real Madrid as “Real”. But I agree that to pretend that 1-0 was an impressive result for a Real Madrid side which played against the 10 men of Atalanta is ridiculous, and Atalanta put in a very creditable defensive performance.

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So happy Arsenal came back from 1-nil down to win 2-1 over the lilywhite scum of North London. #FOYS #COYG

Strange game. Arsenal deserved to win, but were far from convincing and a bit fortunate to get the penalty. Somehow, Spurs were more in the game with 10 men than they were with 11.

Yes, I think we were lucky that Spurs only played with 10 men for the last bit of the game! As for the pen, it was fortunate in that Lacazette had already squandered the chance when he was brought down, but I think that he was nonetheless pretty clearly fouled.

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Saddest semifinalists ever.

Fascists vs. Russian oligarch
Oil emirate vs. Oil emirate

The fascists are clearly the least bad.

Yes, it really is the most awful final four in years.

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Reports that the big English, Spanish and Italian clubs could be set to announce a breakaway European Super League, with UEFA and the relevant member associations likely to react harshly (as they should, IMO). I really hope this doesn’t happen - it would destroy the principles which make football so much more exciting than franchised-based, American-style sports. Very disappointed that Arsenal are allegedly part of it.

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Reports that the big English, Spanish and Italian clubs could be set to announce a breakaway European Super League, with UEFA and the relevant member associations likely to react harshly (as they should, IMO). I really hope this doesn’t happen - it would destroy the principles which make football so much more exciting than franchised-based, American-style sports. Very disappointed that Arsenal are allegedly part of it.

Should not be surprising from American owners like Kroenke, the Glazers, and John Henry. It also completely devalues European fixtures from something special to just an engineered fixture. But I don't see any way this will go forward without government intervention.

Indeed. It’s basically the Americans + Perez and Agnelli. But yeah, the outrage has been too unanimous to see a realistic way forward for it. Leaking it early seems to have been designed to gain extra leverage over UEFA when they confirm the new UCL plans, but even that might have backfired now.

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This "NBAzitation" of European football seems to hit the wall of the EU rules that forbides closed competitions. Don't know how could this go ahead. This will go to courts, plus the fact that players will be forbidden to play in national teams could doom even more this thing.

Technically, it is not closed competitions that are forbidden (there are high-profile European competitions, such as Pro14, which don't have promotion and relegation or annual qualification), but competitions that are anti-competitive.

The competition law on this will be really interesting, and pretty hard to predict. On the one hand, you have the anti-competitive nature of the league. On the other hand, UEFA preventing a competitor competition from being launched is arguably a breach of competition laws. In addition, FIFA/UEFA’s threat to ban Super League players from the World Cup and Euros is unlikely to hold up - there was a similar case where the ice-skating authorities were prevented by the courts from barring skaters who had signed up for a non-sanctioned competition from the Olympics.

The competition aspect seems up in the air, but I still think there are too many factors working against the Super League for it to go ahead in its current form.

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I actually wonder now, did the involved clubs play their cards wrong here? I mean, they must have had some inkling that this universal condemnation was the sort of reaction they would get, and still went ahead with it.

Unless they genuinely think the future of European football lies in appealing to Malaysian teenagers?

I think they knew there would be blowback, but not this level of blowback.

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Chelsea have withdrawn from the Super League. Credit to them for doing the right thing for once. I expect Man City and Liverpool to follow them at a minimum, and I now cannot see the competition surviving.

Edit: City are now also doing so.

Edit 2: Atletico Madrid as well. The floodgates have opened.

Edit 3: All clubs will meet tonight to discuss disbanding the Super League. It’s over.

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All Premier League clubs have confirmed their withdrawal. I suppose I can take one tiny bit of pride in my club, Arsenal, as they were the only ones to actually apologise to the fans in their statement.

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This incident should not be forgotten, and action should be taken to find a long-term solution to prevent future attempts. The ringleaders Perez, Agnelli, and the Americans need to be removed, and safeguards put in place to prevent like-for-like replacements.

It is going to be very hilarious if this Super Duper League clownshow blunder costs Andrea Agnelli his post as president of Juventus. Of course it will not actually change anything because he and his family still own the club, lol. As they have done since forever. I guess that explains many things about Juventus.

Juve, like Real Madrid, have what are probably the strongest values, traditions, and identity of any major club in Europe. The problem is that those values suck.

For that reason, it is not surprising that they were the two clubs whose fans actually expressed the most support for the Super League.

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Two exciting games tonight which were key in their respective leagues’ title races. Barcelona kept their La Liga hopes alive after coming from a goal behind to beat Valencia 3-2 (in spite of a late wonderstrike by Carlos Soler), while Monaco’s Ligue 1 ambitions now probably look to be dead following a dramatic last-minute loss to Lyon (who can now challenge them for a UCL spot) by the same scoreline.

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Very nice to see Leicester lift the FA Cup, and what a goal to win it.

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Arsenal dramatically keeping our European hopes (and more importantly, the prospect of a St. Totteringham’s Day) alive with a late win over Crystal Palace.

It was of course also Roy Hodgson’s last ever home game after 45 years as a manager. A remarkable career in so many ways, but, in my opinion, his finest achievement will always be taking Fulham to the Europa League final.

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This La Liga season was in many ways a story of which team could do the most to lose it, but in the end, Atleti are worthy winners.

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The final day of the PL season brought out excitement and disappointment.

For Arsenal (despite winning 2-0 over Brighton), Everton, and Leicester City, it was a day to forget.
For Tottenham, West Ham, and Liverpool, it was triumph.

For the first time since the 1995-96 season, thanks to Sp*rs' come from behind 4-2 win over Leicester City, Arsenal will not be in any European competitions to end a disappointing season. Also, due to Tottenham's comeback win, St. Totteringham's Day is on hold for another year.  :rage: :cry:

The silver lining is that without Europe we will hopefully be able to concentrate on the league more.