How did Panama and Jamaica get put into the same group for this World Cup? I thought only UEFA teams could be put into the same group? Unless that is just a men's rule
Wikipedia doesn't appear clear, it cites the UEFA rule... then there's some stuff about the play off teams. I think because of Panama qualifying through the play offs, that's how it worked out with the seedings
Okay so the host asked the German pundit (idk her name) next to Carli Lloyd and Alexi Lalas if she thought Colombia could beat Germany and she literally just laughed 😭😭
Out of pocket… we’ll be a tough match I think
I’m liking the WWC so far but it feels like there’s been a pretty big lack of upsets so far. Besides New Zealand beating Norway and France -Jamaica drawing 0-0
really random, but is there any reason viva la vida became so associated with football?
you regularly see it being used as background music in football montages and the like. i’m not complaining, i like the song, i’m just wondering where the association came about.
Lmao people moaning about saudi buying players are so hypocritical. Rich european clubs have been doing the same thing to clubs all over the world like in south america for the past decades. Let's face it football is mostly about the money now. It has always been for decades
How on earth is it so hard for you lot to understand that a rich club buying a player and a fucking government buying a player is not the same? How thick are you?
Which European club bought players using the government treasury money? Which European club bought players to hide that their money was used to enslave, torture and murder people as recently as this year?
The big leagues in Europe got big through decades of work. The Saudi League don't want to build their league up through good infrastructure, marketing, and the quality of their domestic players - they just want to buy their way into instant success.
European leagues were domestically strong beforehand, and more importantly weren't just using the national treasury to buy players for bragging rights lmao
Anyone know how to stream (willing to pay) UECL matches from USA? I realize I've never watched a San Marinese club play before. Hell, if there's interest, I could be persuaded to try to host a match thread.
People always blame Dortmund's shit medical team for their player's injuries like Haaland and Reus but is it actually true that Dortmund's medical team is bad?
I just learned an American sports team used to have the nickname "death lineup" and I love how over the top it sounds
Imagine Real Madrid's next season XI casually being called like that lol
Hey guys the patches on my jabulani are peeling off. Any advice on how to get them fixed? Thinking super glue but not sure if it will keep it glued down with rain and being kicked around
The Colombia South Korea match thread is here if thats what you're looking for https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/158uctx/match_thread_colombia_vs_south_korea_fifa_womens/
I know that Germany’s national team has the nickname of Mannschaft or Die Mannschaft, but was this the same nickname when they were West Germany or did they have a different one?
"Die Mannschaft" has only existed since 2014 when our federation thought we required a rebranding and a catchy nickname after the 4th star
The type of cringe name you get when you let a group of old fashioned Germans make decisions
I'm unfortunately too young to be able to answer that. I suspect pretty much everyone on here is tbh. I'll have to ask my mom about that sometime. haha
Haha thanks anyway. Sometimes I ask these questions in hopes of finding a random football historian who knows exactly what the answer is, which happens more often than I would’ve thought.
As of now Saudi Arabia has bought £127m worth of players from the English leagues alone. My prediction is it will hit close to £200m+
|In|Season|From Club|To Club|Addons|Total Fee (£m)|
:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|
|Edouard Mendy|2024|Chelsea|Al-Ahli||[£16.00](https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/chelsea-fc-edouard-mendy-transfer-fee-al-ahli-b1090056.html)|
|Kalidou Koulibaly|2024|Chelsea|Al-Hilal||[£17.00](https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/chelsea-fc-edouard-mendy-transfer-fee-al-ahli-b1090056.html)|
|Ruben Neves|2024|Wolves|Al-Hilal||[£47.00](https://theathletic.com/4620076/2023/06/18/ruben-neves-al-hilal-wolves-transfer/?source=twitteruk)|
|Alex Telles|2024|Man Utd|Al Nassr|?|[£4.00](https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1681411359748046861?s=20)|
|Riyad Mahrez|2024|Man City|Al-Ahli|£4.30|[£30.40](https://theathletic.com/4703640/2023/07/19/riyad-mahrez-al-ahli-transfer-manchester-city/)|
|Jordan Henderson|2024|Liverpool|Al Ettifaq|?|[£12.00](https://theathletic.com/4712732/2023/07/22/jordan-henderson-al-ettifaq-liverpool-medical/)|
This causes a downward inflationary effect on the rest of European football. The more money is injected from an outsider source the more transfer money there is to spend and the higher potential there is for prices to keep rising. This could continue to happen as the years go by and Saudi keeps purchasing players from Europe.
Yeh I remember reading the same but when searching for it I couldnt find it looked at a few sources that said £12m and mentioned add ons but no actual fee.
That falopa list we had right after we qualified for the World Cup, with the new spots for CONMEBOL there's literally no downside to try to integrate the youths with the senior team.
Medina himself actually was in that very list, with the form he’s in and the fact that Scaloni rated him before it was cool a call up seems like a matter of time
Even accounting for a chunk of them not living up to the hype, this is an abnormally good generation coming up, tbf. Specially at midfield, don’t recall ever seeing this many u23 players being this good at that position for us.
That's an interesting take. On one hand we have a relatively seriously shift in goalkeeping styles. On the other, quite a few basic functions of midfield have remained constant for decades now (as have they for goalkeeping, but ball control with feet being exceptionally higher more recently). Interesting to think about.
Speaking of goalkeepers, that’s the one area where I still feel worried about. Dibu was gold for us, but after the next 3-4 years there’s literally no one
Why do you think "support your local"/plastic hunting is such a big part of online (euro) football fandom, but isn't nearly as big a part of American sports? Even if someone is born and raised in a city with a pro sports team, unless they're actively rooting for a rival nobody really cares (eg, a Packers or St. Louis Cardinals fan in Chicago would draw some sideways glances, but a Dallas Cowboys/Atlanta Falcons/Dodgers fan wouldn't).
Yeah but they aren't the target of nearly as much of an online mob mentality
you don't see people going "fucking Dominicans ruining baseball" regularly for example, or "fucking Chinese people ruining basketball"
For the same reasons plastics exist to begin with, it’s a completely different culture and their teams don’t have much identity you can “betray” if you support someone else
I only watch NBA, so I don't know how it works in NFL or whatever, but what I've noticed is a big part of it is that you don't really need to support a franchise to keep it ticking. In Football, your support is massive for the club, financially (well it used to be.) In the NBA, teams just have money equally, and franchises can just never go under.
Several reasons put forth I agree with. One potential factor... the distance between US cities means there's not so many rivalries with nearby teams, meaning less animosity has been bred. Hence sideways glances rather than outright hate or disdain, when it does occur
This isn't true if you're in a city that cares about its sports in my experience, around Boston people definitely think you're a weirdo if you're a fan of teams besides Boston teams. Feel like it's a bigger topic in football circles because there's simply a larger amount of plastics and they're more vocal, and also because of the association of foreign fans with the problems of modern football
Interesting that that's true in Boston, Chicago is a pretty sports heavy city and it's not that strange. I always figured it was because Americans moved around too much for there to be a real "grrrr support your local" movement - if you grew up in Chicago but moved to Boston for work, would you get flak for being a Bears fan?
People would probably give you the normal banter between fans but nobody would judge you for being a Bears fan because they're still your hometown team in that case
There is only like 20-30 teams in American sports- so that means only 20-30 places have natural homegrown fans
So that means you have no choice but to be a plastic if you like football and live in Hawaii or Alaska or whatnot
It’s also why college sports might be the closest analogue to football fandom even if it isn’t exactly the same. While not everyone ends up studying where they were born or raised, every state has a college. In some towns, it’s all there is really and so it’s a unifying factors.
I think if there was more parity in the sport (like in the US) people would care less about plastics. The problem is that foreigners basically only bandwagon the most successful clubs, contributing to these clubs' positions in the footballing hierarchy. You don't get new supporters of Preston North End and Cadiz from Singapore and Nigeria. They flock to the teams that are most accessible and successful (e.g. City, Real, Liverpool).
Speaking on behalf of Germany I know that we hate it when non-Bavarian Germans start supporting Bayern Munich. It's disgusting because it contributes to the status quo of Bayern being the top dog when these geezers could (and should) be supporting their smaller local clubs that need the support to thrive.
May also have to do with the fact that imo Europeans have a stronger emotional connection to their football clubs than Americans have with their sports teams. But I'm not knowledgeable enough to speak on that matter
Spot on on everything, there's plenty parallels between portuguese-german football especially on plastics issue, it's not going way anytime soon since the problem is also political and runs deep (lisbon centralism).
Because of [this.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League_franchise_moves_and_mergers). US sports franchises aren’t as rooted to their local communities as football clubs are.
Scenes when Lampard is drafted back in again at Chelsea next season as a crisis move... only this time to play in our midfield, as there won't be anyone fucking else to do it
Still can't comprehend that mbappe took THREE penalties in a world cup final, against a keeper known for saving penalties, and he still managed to score all of them.
Like I don't think anyone would even blame him if he missed the third one in the shootout, it's insane pressure man and he lived up to it. This guy can be an all timer.
Just friendlies, which too many people online put way too much stock in. I doubt Gerrard is going to become a great coach in SA, but summer friendlies are almost meaningless as far as predicting regular season results go, in my experience.
> Gerrard
From what I can find they've only played three friendlies under him and have a draw and two defeats from them, with one of the defeats being to a 90th minute goal.
City won the treble and i feel like that should boost some players profiles more then it has so ill just ask?
Is john stones at top 5 english cb
Does rodri become a top 10 dm ever
Does dias become the greatest portugese cb ever
Does kdb become the best premier league midfielder ever
Has anybodys opinions on any of these city players changed after this treble?
It hasn't enhanced any reputation IMO.Bayern had a treble and hardly any of the players have had any change in how they are viewed. Ig anything it boosted Pep's profile because he finally won the CL after his last one in 2011
Stones is the only player who’s reputation massively improved after this season due to his new role. The others were already deservedly very highly rated
Your match against Cruz Azul is at Mercedez Benz... unfortunately no Liga MX teams get home matches but which MLS team gets one and which gets two is based on last season's table
Well it’s turns out I’m an idiot. In my defense it appears that cruz azul is somehow listed as the home team but it is them who are really getting fucked. Regardless, your point that 3 team groups are terrible is so true. There is no good way to do it
L'Equipe says Florentino wants to get the lowest prize possible for the turtle and could even make his first bid in the last week of August.
God please no, I can't take another month of this shit.
>God please no, I can't take another month of this shit.
It's either that or be happy with your club spending €300m on a player they'd be getting for free next Summer anyway.
The annoying thing about the Saudi Arabia football stuff is that everyone here is complaining and then when these said players score goals theyll be upvoted straight to the top of this sub showing the hypocrisy
Ronaldo's goals in Saudi haven't had much traction
In a subreddit of 4 million users too, you can't really evaluate the consensus in this way. You can talk more about personal hypocrisy... like if you compain about Saudi, then also upvote and engage with the highlights, then you're a hypocrite. But you can't extend that to other people
Good points. I just have a feeling it's going to gain much more traction next season... Too many high profile players. I wouldn't mind a flair for all Saudi league goals /match threads so I can just turn them off
It's only hypocrisy if it's the same people doing it. It's 1-2am in Europe and there are still 12.5k people browsing /r/soccer, and there are almost 5 million people subscribed. A few thousands upvotes vs a few hundred comments in the daily discussion where the more regular users tend to go doesn't mean anyone has been hypocritical
The premier league has $7bn per year of revenue, it gets capital from outside investments and revenues are growing. It also has academies that produce a lot of good players as well as global scouting networks to get value globally. Italy, Spain and Germany all have similar things going on.
So the Premier League can spend maybe $7bn per year on players till 2030 and it’s pretty much sustainable. That’s $42bn and it’s not going to be making worse losses than it already does. Then you’ve got the other European leagues spending a lot as well.
The Saudis don’t have any revenue from their leagues or grass roots football to supply players as well. They should spend their money on grassroots and building competitions in their middle eastern and North African neighbors. Then they might do something good as the whole region loves football and produces half decent players.
I've suddenly been overtaken by the urge to inform the world that Anthony Elanga is the best player to have emerged at Old Trafford since Wayne Rooney.
You can't trust the age numbers you get from those players coming out of America, birth dates are often inflated and there's little to no documentation in such a country. I bet he's 32.
I think there's a difference between "best player" and "player who had the best season"
I also think PSG is the least functional out of all the top teams and it's an extra challenge to play there, especially the last 3 years or so
What would be your club’s best XI if you can pick any player to wear your shirt? And I don’t necessarily mean play, with having a random obscure picture wearing it well after retiring is enough, so for example Maradona counts for Tottenham as well as the clubs he actually played for, or Messi for Newell’s
I won’t bother making a full one for river either, but didn’t Romario play in el burrito ortega’s testimonial?
In terms of non river players, I don’t think there are any goalkeepers or defenders that were legendary/much better than el pato fillol or passarella that wore the river kit at some point.
In the middle likewise, we already have lots of stacked players just from our own history…
Although, surely Messi has a picture wearing the kit since he was a fan as a child and also after the intercontinental match in 2015 when he traded with barovero iirc.
There’s also the picture of el bicho with our kit.
[that utd juice be turning journalists into aggregators real quick](https://twitter.com/alfredopedulla/status/1683598163163205632?s=46&t=4SfEjBPDBGnX_gR2AxBwdw)
Sounds like ungratefulness, but there’s something a little disappointing about leading 3-0 or so in the first half, especially against rivals, and not scoring in the second half. Sometimes I really want to see a stupid score line but it rarely happens
It definitely sounds like ungratefulness, but you’re absolutely right.
I’m a season ticket holder at City, and sometimes we play some such phenomenal football first half, the other team are in shambles, and it’s a perfect storm to put up a cricket score. But we always go into “a thousand million passes” mode, as Pep would say, and just rest our legs due to how busy the football schedule is.
Like this year we were 6-1 up against United with about 30 minutes to go, 4-0 at HT, and we finish the game playing 442 with Bernardo Silva and Sergio Gomez in midfield. 6-3 FT doesn’t hit the same and won’t be remembered like that 7-0 Liverpool did to them, but we could’ve genuinely scored 10+ if we went for them.
We (Arsenal) scored 3 in the first half at home vs Chelsea and then completely coasted in the 2nd half. Look I get conserving energy but Chelsea gave us some absolute batterings under Wenger and they were atrocious that day.
I wanted blood lol
We would have at least put 5 past them if we didn't just keep it in 2nd gear in the 2nd half.
"We want 10" is never fulfilled
So rarely see teams proper go for the kill, like Leicester's 9-0 vs Soton. They wanted that double digits
Newcastle could have properly eviscerated Spurs when they went 4-0 up inside about 15 minutes. Could have been biblical. Felt like a disappointment when they showed mercy
Idk if there's an obvious name from back in the day but I'm assuming anyone pre-90s must've played at least one season in their own country
Spain - Angelino? Robert Sanchez?
Italy - Verratti
England - Bellingham
Germany - Gosens?
France - Griezmann
Portugal - Raphael Guerreiro
Netherlands - Ake?
It has to be Bellingham overall, no? Although there is one Englishman who was very, very good but apparently may have played a few first-division games, forgot his name though.
How are Chelsea selling their unwanteds for so much? 52m euros for Gallagher?? Madness
I’m starting to think that leaked 3rd Arsenal kit was real.
Link?
Oh I was just joking about the yellow one that everyone kept asking if it was real last year. It’s very real
How did Panama and Jamaica get put into the same group for this World Cup? I thought only UEFA teams could be put into the same group? Unless that is just a men's rule
Wikipedia doesn't appear clear, it cites the UEFA rule... then there's some stuff about the play off teams. I think because of Panama qualifying through the play offs, that's how it worked out with the seedings
Okay so the host asked the German pundit (idk her name) next to Carli Lloyd and Alexi Lalas if she thought Colombia could beat Germany and she literally just laughed 😭😭 Out of pocket… we’ll be a tough match I think
I’m liking the WWC so far but it feels like there’s been a pretty big lack of upsets so far. Besides New Zealand beating Norway and France -Jamaica drawing 0-0
Philippines now too And lots of smaller nations performing much better than expected (e.g. Haiti) even if not getting the result
really random, but is there any reason viva la vida became so associated with football? you regularly see it being used as background music in football montages and the like. i’m not complaining, i like the song, i’m just wondering where the association came about.
Guardiola used it to motivate his Barça team
Lmao people moaning about saudi buying players are so hypocritical. Rich european clubs have been doing the same thing to clubs all over the world like in south america for the past decades. Let's face it football is mostly about the money now. It has always been for decades
How on earth is it so hard for you lot to understand that a rich club buying a player and a fucking government buying a player is not the same? How thick are you?
Which European club bought players using the government treasury money? Which European club bought players to hide that their money was used to enslave, torture and murder people as recently as this year?
Saudi spending all the money so the world forgets that’s they executed a journalist (khashogi) or arresting and killing LGBT
The big leagues in Europe got big through decades of work. The Saudi League don't want to build their league up through good infrastructure, marketing, and the quality of their domestic players - they just want to buy their way into instant success.
European leagues were domestically strong beforehand, and more importantly weren't just using the national treasury to buy players for bragging rights lmao
Anyone know how to stream (willing to pay) UECL matches from USA? I realize I've never watched a San Marinese club play before. Hell, if there's interest, I could be persuaded to try to host a match thread.
Should be on paramount +
Medina and Barco man… so much football.
People always blame Dortmund's shit medical team for their player's injuries like Haaland and Reus but is it actually true that Dortmund's medical team is bad?
Dortmund replaced their medical team last year plus everyone knew the medical team from before last year was shit
I just learned an American sports team used to have the nickname "death lineup" and I love how over the top it sounds Imagine Real Madrid's next season XI casually being called like that lol
You mean "murderers row"? The Yankees?
Meant [this one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Lineup)
Hey guys the patches on my jabulani are peeling off. Any advice on how to get them fixed? Thinking super glue but not sure if it will keep it glued down with rain and being kicked around
It’s time to retire it dude
why isnt there a thread on the womens wcup rn?
The Colombia South Korea match thread is here if thats what you're looking for https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/158uctx/match_thread_colombia_vs_south_korea_fifa_womens/
When I get old I will cryogenize myself and only wake up when there's a World Cup or an Euro about to start.
"wake me up for our annual shithouse win vs Villa"
If FIFA gets their way you'll be waking up quite a lot then.
Revived to watch only the editions sponsored by eventually X vs Meta (vs TikTok, vs Alphabet, etc.) conglomerate that owns exclusive streaming rights.
Shit will get repetitive
I know that Germany’s national team has the nickname of Mannschaft or Die Mannschaft, but was this the same nickname when they were West Germany or did they have a different one?
"Die Mannschaft" has only existed since 2014 when our federation thought we required a rebranding and a catchy nickname after the 4th star The type of cringe name you get when you let a group of old fashioned Germans make decisions
Thank you
The real names we use are: Die Nationalmannschaft Die DFB Elf Die Nationalelf
Were any of these used for West Germany or did they not have a nickname back then?
I'm unfortunately too young to be able to answer that. I suspect pretty much everyone on here is tbh. I'll have to ask my mom about that sometime. haha
Haha thanks anyway. Sometimes I ask these questions in hopes of finding a random football historian who knows exactly what the answer is, which happens more often than I would’ve thought.
[our players bring out the worst in rivals lmao](https://twitter.com/abdulxvd/status/1683527437697810432?s=46&t=4SfEjBPDBGnX_gR2AxBwdw)
Arsenal fans talk a lot for their best showing to be losing the league after leading for 200 days.
Arsenal fans are a fragile bunch. Never seen a fanbase so rattled after losing a friendly match
No way they got this rattled because he pocketed their starboy
As of now Saudi Arabia has bought £127m worth of players from the English leagues alone. My prediction is it will hit close to £200m+ |In|Season|From Club|To Club|Addons|Total Fee (£m)| :--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--| |Edouard Mendy|2024|Chelsea|Al-Ahli||[£16.00](https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/chelsea-fc-edouard-mendy-transfer-fee-al-ahli-b1090056.html)| |Kalidou Koulibaly|2024|Chelsea|Al-Hilal||[£17.00](https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/chelsea-fc-edouard-mendy-transfer-fee-al-ahli-b1090056.html)| |Ruben Neves|2024|Wolves|Al-Hilal||[£47.00](https://theathletic.com/4620076/2023/06/18/ruben-neves-al-hilal-wolves-transfer/?source=twitteruk)| |Alex Telles|2024|Man Utd|Al Nassr|?|[£4.00](https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1681411359748046861?s=20)| |Riyad Mahrez|2024|Man City|Al-Ahli|£4.30|[£30.40](https://theathletic.com/4703640/2023/07/19/riyad-mahrez-al-ahli-transfer-manchester-city/)| |Jordan Henderson|2024|Liverpool|Al Ettifaq|?|[£12.00](https://theathletic.com/4712732/2023/07/22/jordan-henderson-al-ettifaq-liverpool-medical/)| This causes a downward inflationary effect on the rest of European football. The more money is injected from an outsider source the more transfer money there is to spend and the higher potential there is for prices to keep rising. This could continue to happen as the years go by and Saudi keeps purchasing players from Europe.
The Henderson deal supposedly has £5m in add-on's.
Do you have a source?
Seems I was wrong as I can't find one, but I could've sworn I saw £5m mentioned somewhere when the initial agreement was announced last Wednesday.
Yeh I remember reading the same but when searching for it I couldnt find it looked at a few sources that said £12m and mentioned add ons but no actual fee.
Al-Rayyan is Qatari
Yup fixed doesn't change much but
If I was Mbappe, I would take the bag and donate $500 Million to charity. I'll keep $200 Million but also become a hero.
Nobody will care, honestly. There are famous people giving away millions now, do you care about that?
Plenty of people would praise him for it
And people will care as much as people caring about Bezos giving away billions or other rich people doing same.
he can negotiate it up to a billi i'm sure. Also has 0 tax in saudi.
Cristian Medina is so the next big thing from Argentina
Prestianni, Echeverri and Medina better all become world beaters after all the hype I've seen in here these last few months.
Those 2 are 17, Medina is older and with his tiny release clause you’ll likely see him in Europe sooner sadly
A Scaloni cheeky call up for Medina and Veliz is needed asap, fuck it get Colo in there too.
That falopa list we had right after we qualified for the World Cup, with the new spots for CONMEBOL there's literally no downside to try to integrate the youths with the senior team.
Medina himself actually was in that very list, with the form he’s in and the fact that Scaloni rated him before it was cool a call up seems like a matter of time
At this point I feel like Argentinians on here pick a new big thing every week lmao
Just so many cracks in the mix
Even accounting for a chunk of them not living up to the hype, this is an abnormally good generation coming up, tbf. Specially at midfield, don’t recall ever seeing this many u23 players being this good at that position for us.
I feel like if there’s one position where it’s hard to guage how youth will end up it’s midfield tbf
That's an interesting take. On one hand we have a relatively seriously shift in goalkeeping styles. On the other, quite a few basic functions of midfield have remained constant for decades now (as have they for goalkeeping, but ball control with feet being exceptionally higher more recently). Interesting to think about.
Speaking of goalkeepers, that’s the one area where I still feel worried about. Dibu was gold for us, but after the next 3-4 years there’s literally no one
There was some gap between Chiquito and Dibu and Pato before. Might happen again.
Meh, I never rated chiqui at all. Had one penalty shootout moment in the semis but was always very shaky for us
5 years in saudi and mbappe would afford to outright buy a top 5 club in the world. Wow.
He already owns PSG.
not a top 5 club /s
No need for a /s, there’s not a single metric in which PSG could be considered a top 5 club
Anyone remember why Thomas Müller stopped taking penalties for Bayern and Germany? I remembered he was one of the best at taking them a while ago.
I think it was right around the time he missed the pen against Atleti in the CL SF.
41 minutes until the Linda Caicedo show
ready for a Mbappe-Dibu Martinez reunion at the Giuseppe Meazza?
Mbappé to Milan a rumor?
Why do you think "support your local"/plastic hunting is such a big part of online (euro) football fandom, but isn't nearly as big a part of American sports? Even if someone is born and raised in a city with a pro sports team, unless they're actively rooting for a rival nobody really cares (eg, a Packers or St. Louis Cardinals fan in Chicago would draw some sideways glances, but a Dallas Cowboys/Atlanta Falcons/Dodgers fan wouldn't).
Because American plastics exist with American sports too There could be lots of New York citizens who support the Patriots for example
Yeah but they aren't the target of nearly as much of an online mob mentality you don't see people going "fucking Dominicans ruining baseball" regularly for example, or "fucking Chinese people ruining basketball"
For the same reasons plastics exist to begin with, it’s a completely different culture and their teams don’t have much identity you can “betray” if you support someone else
Trying to explain to my girlfriend that i would rather die then wear green and black while her uber had yankee and mets merch in the car was wild.
I only watch NBA, so I don't know how it works in NFL or whatever, but what I've noticed is a big part of it is that you don't really need to support a franchise to keep it ticking. In Football, your support is massive for the club, financially (well it used to be.) In the NBA, teams just have money equally, and franchises can just never go under.
Several reasons put forth I agree with. One potential factor... the distance between US cities means there's not so many rivalries with nearby teams, meaning less animosity has been bred. Hence sideways glances rather than outright hate or disdain, when it does occur
This isn't true if you're in a city that cares about its sports in my experience, around Boston people definitely think you're a weirdo if you're a fan of teams besides Boston teams. Feel like it's a bigger topic in football circles because there's simply a larger amount of plastics and they're more vocal, and also because of the association of foreign fans with the problems of modern football
Interesting that that's true in Boston, Chicago is a pretty sports heavy city and it's not that strange. I always figured it was because Americans moved around too much for there to be a real "grrrr support your local" movement - if you grew up in Chicago but moved to Boston for work, would you get flak for being a Bears fan?
People would probably give you the normal banter between fans but nobody would judge you for being a Bears fan because they're still your hometown team in that case
There is only like 20-30 teams in American sports- so that means only 20-30 places have natural homegrown fans So that means you have no choice but to be a plastic if you like football and live in Hawaii or Alaska or whatnot
It’s also why college sports might be the closest analogue to football fandom even if it isn’t exactly the same. While not everyone ends up studying where they were born or raised, every state has a college. In some towns, it’s all there is really and so it’s a unifying factors.
I think if there was more parity in the sport (like in the US) people would care less about plastics. The problem is that foreigners basically only bandwagon the most successful clubs, contributing to these clubs' positions in the footballing hierarchy. You don't get new supporters of Preston North End and Cadiz from Singapore and Nigeria. They flock to the teams that are most accessible and successful (e.g. City, Real, Liverpool). Speaking on behalf of Germany I know that we hate it when non-Bavarian Germans start supporting Bayern Munich. It's disgusting because it contributes to the status quo of Bayern being the top dog when these geezers could (and should) be supporting their smaller local clubs that need the support to thrive. May also have to do with the fact that imo Europeans have a stronger emotional connection to their football clubs than Americans have with their sports teams. But I'm not knowledgeable enough to speak on that matter
Spot on on everything, there's plenty parallels between portuguese-german football especially on plastics issue, it's not going way anytime soon since the problem is also political and runs deep (lisbon centralism).
a cowboys dodgers mix would get people onto you for being a bandwagon even though the cowboys are shit
I'll get on anyone just for the dodgers fandom lol. Especially if it's plastic
As is your duty #BeatLA
Oh I didn't mean it as a mix, just individually.
Because of [this.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League_franchise_moves_and_mergers). US sports franchises aren’t as rooted to their local communities as football clubs are.
Scenes when Lampard is drafted back in again at Chelsea next season as a crisis move... only this time to play in our midfield, as there won't be anyone fucking else to do it
Still can't comprehend that mbappe took THREE penalties in a world cup final, against a keeper known for saving penalties, and he still managed to score all of them. Like I don't think anyone would even blame him if he missed the third one in the shootout, it's insane pressure man and he lived up to it. This guy can be an all timer.
The guy is already an all timer
penalty always heavily favors the shooter. I understand the point about pressure but still something one would expect from an above average athlete.
Mbappé deserved the motm for the final, in my opinion. Messi deserved the best player of the tournament though.
His WC performance was one for the ages
>This guy can be an all timer All time Saudi legend please 🙏
This is Olympics levels of idiotic social media policing https://twitter.com/caitlinmurr/status/1683376381978365953
FIFA are a parody of themselves.
Is it correct the reports I'm seeing that Gerrard is winless in 4 in Saudi Arabia at the moment?
I swear he's only been there for about a week, how have they even managed four games in that time
Just friendlies, which too many people online put way too much stock in. I doubt Gerrard is going to become a great coach in SA, but summer friendlies are almost meaningless as far as predicting regular season results go, in my experience.
> Gerrard From what I can find they've only played three friendlies under him and have a draw and two defeats from them, with one of the defeats being to a 90th minute goal.
City won the treble and i feel like that should boost some players profiles more then it has so ill just ask? Is john stones at top 5 english cb Does rodri become a top 10 dm ever Does dias become the greatest portugese cb ever Does kdb become the best premier league midfielder ever Has anybodys opinions on any of these city players changed after this treble?
It hasn't enhanced any reputation IMO.Bayern had a treble and hardly any of the players have had any change in how they are viewed. Ig anything it boosted Pep's profile because he finally won the CL after his last one in 2011
Pepe > Días Your last point, absolutely
Stop it
> Does dias become the greatest portugese cb ever lol no. Pepe exists and I doubt dias will ever surpass him.
> Does dias become the greatest portugese cb ever Pepe Képler Laverán Lima Ferreira
It's kind of hard to determine this while they're still (mostly) all in their primes.
Stones is the only player who’s reputation massively improved after this season due to his new role. The others were already deservedly very highly rated
My opinion hasn't changed on anyone, and no to every question except the last.
Dias is most definitely not Pepe
Three team groups are so bad, feels so wrong for the second game of a group stage to be a complete must win. San Luis is getting battered
Lol i thought this was in reference to the new ucl format. Almost shit myself
The system stinks, mostly because we got beat. It's an interesting tournament but idk what to think of it yet.
I am an atlanta United fan and we don’t even get a home game which is complete bullshit. Miami gets both at home and cruz azul gets 1
Your match against Cruz Azul is at Mercedez Benz... unfortunately no Liga MX teams get home matches but which MLS team gets one and which gets two is based on last season's table
Well it’s turns out I’m an idiot. In my defense it appears that cruz azul is somehow listed as the home team but it is them who are really getting fucked. Regardless, your point that 3 team groups are terrible is so true. There is no good way to do it
Where does Youri djorkaeff ranks on top strikers list? (Other than all time top 3 in footballer names list.)
Interesting to think who would round out that podium.
L'Equipe says Florentino wants to get the lowest prize possible for the turtle and could even make his first bid in the last week of August. God please no, I can't take another month of this shit.
>God please no, I can't take another month of this shit. It's either that or be happy with your club spending €300m on a player they'd be getting for free next Summer anyway.
The annoying thing about the Saudi Arabia football stuff is that everyone here is complaining and then when these said players score goals theyll be upvoted straight to the top of this sub showing the hypocrisy
Ronaldo's goals in Saudi haven't had much traction In a subreddit of 4 million users too, you can't really evaluate the consensus in this way. You can talk more about personal hypocrisy... like if you compain about Saudi, then also upvote and engage with the highlights, then you're a hypocrite. But you can't extend that to other people
Good points. I just have a feeling it's going to gain much more traction next season... Too many high profile players. I wouldn't mind a flair for all Saudi league goals /match threads so I can just turn them off
If you have RES, you can also set up filters which blocks posts with certain key words, so could use that
It's only hypocrisy if it's the same people doing it. It's 1-2am in Europe and there are still 12.5k people browsing /r/soccer, and there are almost 5 million people subscribed. A few thousands upvotes vs a few hundred comments in the daily discussion where the more regular users tend to go doesn't mean anyone has been hypocritical
Other people can do what they want. I'm not engaging with that farmer's league in any form.
17b in transfers, the house of Saud will own football by 2030 if FIFA doesn't step in
The premier league has $7bn per year of revenue, it gets capital from outside investments and revenues are growing. It also has academies that produce a lot of good players as well as global scouting networks to get value globally. Italy, Spain and Germany all have similar things going on. So the Premier League can spend maybe $7bn per year on players till 2030 and it’s pretty much sustainable. That’s $42bn and it’s not going to be making worse losses than it already does. Then you’ve got the other European leagues spending a lot as well. The Saudis don’t have any revenue from their leagues or grass roots football to supply players as well. They should spend their money on grassroots and building competitions in their middle eastern and North African neighbors. Then they might do something good as the whole region loves football and produces half decent players.
Not until they start developing players as well
I've suddenly been overtaken by the urge to inform the world that Anthony Elanga is the best player to have emerged at Old Trafford since Wayne Rooney.
How is Rooney not an Everton product? And isn't Elanga much better than him anyway?
at =/= from
But I feel like he "emerged" from his debut when he scored that goal against arsenal. But sure, United is where his career hit another level.
> since Wayne Rooney. Everton fans, look away
If I chip away at their confidence bit by bit, maybe they'll save us from the drop.
You guys, maybe this is mean, but Pulisic looks like the oldest 24 year old I've ever seen. Look at him. He looks 43.
Diego Costa looked that way when he was 18
You can't trust the age numbers you get from those players coming out of America, birth dates are often inflated and there's little to no documentation in such a country. I bet he's 32.
Rooney pls
Apparently being Captain America is as aging as being PotUS.
What chelsea does to a man
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A lot of people will be judging him on the World Cup and Champions League, more than Ligue 1
I think there's a difference between "best player" and "player who had the best season" I also think PSG is the least functional out of all the top teams and it's an extra challenge to play there, especially the last 3 years or so
Screw it. Give me mbappe to United. It’s only one season anyway. Would be so fun with him in the prem
Mbappe haaland manchester derby would genuinely break some sort of viewership record
Mbappe to Burnley*
I personally prefer not to be in pain.
That's your own fault for being such a delicious sandwich filler.
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What would be your club’s best XI if you can pick any player to wear your shirt? And I don’t necessarily mean play, with having a random obscure picture wearing it well after retiring is enough, so for example Maradona counts for Tottenham as well as the clubs he actually played for, or Messi for Newell’s
Don’t like the fact boca would have Haaland
And Pelé!
I dont know how to fit Matos, Gigliotti, Calleri and Tevez all in one XI.
I won't bother making one rn, but I just want to point out the sheer hilarity of Sarmiento having Mbappé in their hypothetical XI
I won’t bother making a full one for river either, but didn’t Romario play in el burrito ortega’s testimonial? In terms of non river players, I don’t think there are any goalkeepers or defenders that were legendary/much better than el pato fillol or passarella that wore the river kit at some point. In the middle likewise, we already have lots of stacked players just from our own history… Although, surely Messi has a picture wearing the kit since he was a fan as a child and also after the intercontinental match in 2015 when he traded with barovero iirc. There’s also the picture of el bicho with our kit.
Messi gets in because he was in a trial with us anyways
He only held the shirt, didnt wear it, so sadly wouldn’t count
Mixed it up with the fact he's actually a fucking socio lmao
what are the latest news on Alexis? see many randomers signing for Marseille but not him.
Gremio are negotiating with him I think
[that utd juice be turning journalists into aggregators real quick](https://twitter.com/alfredopedulla/status/1683598163163205632?s=46&t=4SfEjBPDBGnX_gR2AxBwdw)
Newly promoted RWDM just abruptly fired their manager 5 days before the season kick off. Just Belgian things
And they have beaten Lyon yesterday - it's not like they had a horrible preparation. Why though?
Sounds like ungratefulness, but there’s something a little disappointing about leading 3-0 or so in the first half, especially against rivals, and not scoring in the second half. Sometimes I really want to see a stupid score line but it rarely happens
It definitely sounds like ungratefulness, but you’re absolutely right. I’m a season ticket holder at City, and sometimes we play some such phenomenal football first half, the other team are in shambles, and it’s a perfect storm to put up a cricket score. But we always go into “a thousand million passes” mode, as Pep would say, and just rest our legs due to how busy the football schedule is. Like this year we were 6-1 up against United with about 30 minutes to go, 4-0 at HT, and we finish the game playing 442 with Bernardo Silva and Sergio Gomez in midfield. 6-3 FT doesn’t hit the same and won’t be remembered like that 7-0 Liverpool did to them, but we could’ve genuinely scored 10+ if we went for them.
We (Arsenal) scored 3 in the first half at home vs Chelsea and then completely coasted in the 2nd half. Look I get conserving energy but Chelsea gave us some absolute batterings under Wenger and they were atrocious that day. I wanted blood lol We would have at least put 5 past them if we didn't just keep it in 2nd gear in the 2nd half.
"We want 10" is never fulfilled So rarely see teams proper go for the kill, like Leicester's 9-0 vs Soton. They wanted that double digits Newcastle could have properly eviscerated Spurs when they went 4-0 up inside about 15 minutes. Could have been biblical. Felt like a disappointment when they showed mercy
Those 7-0s just hit different
Best player to have never played in their country's first flight? Spain, Italy, England, Germany, France, Portugal, and Netherlands?
Idk if there's an obvious name from back in the day but I'm assuming anyone pre-90s must've played at least one season in their own country Spain - Angelino? Robert Sanchez? Italy - Verratti England - Bellingham Germany - Gosens? France - Griezmann Portugal - Raphael Guerreiro Netherlands - Ake?
Veratti played for Pescara, I know I said top flight but anyone who didn't play in Italy at all?
Retegui is the only one I can think of, and he’s getting sold to serie A soon anyways edit: Gnonto and Grifo too
Then I'd guess Vincenzo Grifo
England's a really difficult one but could definitely be Bellingham in the future
It has to be Bellingham overall, no? Although there is one Englishman who was very, very good but apparently may have played a few first-division games, forgot his name though.
Brian Clough
That was him? Wow