Association Football 2023/2024 Discussion Thread

[Santander]

With Chelsea's 3-1 victory against Bournemouth, they have secured Premier League survival.

Sadly, it means the pointless appointment of Lampard won't be point-less.

[NewYorkExpress]

Real Madrid won their twentieth Copa del Rey 2-1 over Osasuna yesterday, behind a pair of goals from Rodrygo.

Now Los Blancos's attention turns towards defending their Champions League title, with a massive semifinal showdown against Manchester City awaiting them starting on Tuesday.

If they win the Champions League, it will be their third trophy this season, having already won the UEFA Super Cup back in August against Eintracht Frankfurt.

[NewYorkExpress]

Arsenal keeping hope alive for a Premier League title, as they down Newcastle United 2-0 in a tricky matchup at St. James's Park, to move back to within a point of Manchester City, but they need to win all of their remaining games, and hope Manchester City loses at least one along the way (unlikely, but it's possible the Citizens will prioritize the Champions League over the Premier League if they get past Real Madrid in that competition, meaning resting key players like Haaland, for example ahead of the Champions League final).

[afleitch]

Celtic champions again.

[Mike88]

Benfica pretty much has a lock on the Championship after beating Braga 1-0 last night:

Current standings has Benfica with 80 points, Porto with 73 (minus one game), Braga 71 and Sporting 64 (minus one game).

Ugh...

[NewYorkExpress]

Manchester United doing whatever it takes to give away a Champions League spot, losing 1-0 to West Ham United today.

The gap between Manchester United and Liverpool is just one point now.

Manchester United next plays Wolverhampton on Saturday, while Liverpool, in excellent form, faces Leicester City next Monday.

[Mike88]

Dear God...

https://twitter.com/vsports_pt/status/1655297741117898765

[NewYorkExpress]

https://twitter.com/elchiringuitotv/status/1655508457984872448?s=20

Apparently Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba are all heading to Saudi Arabia (and more specifically, Al Hilal).

[Santander]

Al-Hilal countering Al-Nassr's aging star who can't run with three aging stars who can't run.

[DavidB.]

Dear God...

https://twitter.com/vsports_pt/status/1655297741117898765

Also a fail:
https://twitter.com/VideoEredivisie/status/1654936065919049728

[Zinneke]

My local team Racing White Daring Molenbeek may get promoted this weekend if we beat Anderlecht's under-23 side.

As the name suggest we come from the most unfashionable district of Brussels (the only stadium other than Charleroi's where you have high rises surrounding it). We regularly have racist chanting against us despite a plurality of our support being white flight Brusseleir and very far from being left-wing if anything. When we had "vak vol makkaken" ["you're a stand full of monkeys"] chanted at us by Vlaams Belang cosplay retards Beerschot this season, we turned up to their place like this :



We've been through something like 5 bankruptcies, mergers, name changes, etc so much so that wikipedia has a timeline of all the football clubs that took on the mantle of "that club from Molenbeek".

In one of our previous incarnations when I started going, we had a good project going but led mad politically incorrect ex-player Johan Vermeesch. He decided to name the team FC Brussels and wanted to buy Anderlecht's stadium and turn it into apartment blocks to have a "1 club for 1 city". He also unfortunately clashed a lot with the organized support over a range of issues and had a racism scandal. A total egomaniac who split the fanbase and drove FC Brussels into the ground.

We then had our stadium stolen by a Sheikh's football money laundering operation led by an insane but somehow competent agent, John Bico, who when ordered to share the stadium with us, would deliberately padlock the gates to the entrance of the stadium and feign ignorance, while leading his side to the Belgian first division, only to have them denied a liscence because Molenbeek commune stripped him of the stadium. Our President, Thierry Dailly - who played for us and the other traditional club in Brussels, Union Saint-Gilloise - started the new pheonix project with his son volunteering to sell tickets to see us initially play our home games in Wetteren, way outside of Brussels, until we finally took "the Temple" back from the Sheikh and Bico's hands after they lost their licence. His son is now in the roster of the team.

Now Dailly has sold up to John Textor, yet another American with a multiclub ownership structure, who may drive us into the ground for the 6th time or bring back the glory years. But we still turn up to the Temple every other week and bring more away numbers than half the first division.

I'm telling this story because Americans will never know what it feels like to see your club get relegated, disappear, have to start from scratch, or have insane figures drive them into the ground and yet still see yourself work through the ranks and have the rollercoaster ride of jumping from division to division - franchise football is not football!

and to the rest of you give hope to all those others who will see their club get relegated or face insolvency in the near future as is often the case this time of year.

[NewYorkExpress]

Real Madrid and Manchester City battle to a 1-1 draw at Santiago Bernabeu.

[Santander]

Seemingly every year these days, we have to cheer on Real Madrid because they are the only ones who can consistently take down the monsters in the Champions League.    What a sad state of affairs.

[NewYorkExpress]

Inter Milan take a huge step towards the Champions League final, winning the first leg of Derby Della Madonnina Champions League Semifinal 2-0.

[Santander]

10 years ago to the day...

[Mike88]

10 years ago to the day...

Exactly 10 years ago also... when Jesus knelt down: (after minute 10:00)

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Milan's best hopes of Champions League play next season may now rest on a new Juventus points infraction (and only barely on that thanks to the 97th minute response to Roma's stoppage time 'winner' to keep hold them in fifth, a game ahead of Roma). What a mediocrity, somehow conceding twice to hopeless Spezia not long after a massive celebration for salvaging a draw against Cremonese.

Spezia's last two wins are when they played host to each of the Milanese squads, and they have a total of three points from the eight games in between those. They once again have a prayer of holding off relegation - and Lecce who appeared to be comfortable may now be sweating it out. Must watch tv between that next Sunday.

Hellas Verona actually has the toughest remaining matches, even with a game in hand, and may be sweating the most despite the best form.

Spezia remains my pick to go down, but they control their fate and can believe again.

[NewYorkExpress]

Manchester United gets a vital win against Wolves on their quest to make the Champions League. Their lead over Liverpool is up to four points.

[NewYorkExpress]

With their loss to Fulham today, Southampton has officially been relegated from the English Premier League.

[NewYorkExpress]

It's official (except for the actual signature on the contract). Maurcio Pochettino will be the next head coach at Chelsea.

Still think Chelsea could have gotten Luis Enrique, and if they were willing to wait to see how Real Madrid's season ends, Carlo Ancelotti might well have been available too (and he might well have more willing to come to London than managing Brazil).

[NewYorkExpress]

Arsenal gets flattened by Brighton & Hove Albion 3-0.

With the result, Manchester City just needs a point against Chelsea, paired with a Arsenal against Nottingham Forest, or win against Chelsea, regardless of Arsenal's result, next week to win the Premier League.

[JGibson]

Arsenal gets flattened by Brighton & Hove Albion 3-0.

With the result, Manchester City just needs a point against Chelsea, paired with a Arsenal Nottingham Forest, or win against Chelsea, regardless of Arsenal's result, next week to win the Premier League.

Seeing Arsenal blow an 8-point lead at the beginning of April and being 4 points behind makes me want to puke.

[NewYorkExpress]

With their 4-2 win in the Catalan Derby today, Barcelona has clinched the La Liga title.

[Santander]

Arsenal gets flattened by Brighton & Hove Albion 3-0.

With the result, Manchester City just needs a point against Chelsea, paired with a Arsenal Nottingham Forest, or win against Chelsea, regardless of Arsenal's result, next week to win the Premier League.

Seeing Arsenal blow an 8-point lead at the beginning of April and being 4 points behind makes me want to puke.

Really, it comes down to squad depth. The wheels fell off after they lost Saliba. Rob Holding cannot be the 3rd-best central defender in a title-winning team.

[Lechasseur]

Arsenal gets flattened by Brighton & Hove Albion 3-0.

With the result, Manchester City just needs a point against Chelsea, paired with a Arsenal Nottingham Forest, or win against Chelsea, regardless of Arsenal's result, next week to win the Premier League.

Seeing Arsenal blow an 8-point lead at the beginning of April and being 4 points behind makes me want to puke.

Really, it comes down to squad depth. The wheels fell off after they lost Saliba. Rob Holding cannot be the 3rd-best central defender in a title-winning team.

Pretty much. That's why I'm not particularly surprised by what's happened here in the last few weeks, nor particularly frustrated with Arsenal. Sure, it's annoying they blew the lead they had, but with their current squad I think it was inevitable. I frankly don't think this was a top 4 squad (and I'm saying that as someone who's been an Arsenal fan for nearly 20 years now), the fact that Arsenal led for large chunks of the season was already a great achievement.

This wasn't like blowing the League Cup final to Birmingham City (there I was so angry haha), nor to a lesser degree letting a clearly less talented Leicester City squad win the league (Kante imo was the only truly top player on that team, it was probably an FA Cup winning quality side that could have made Europa League, shouldn't have been winning the league against Arsenal and Tottenham).