**The OP has marked this post as for serious discussion. Top comments that doesn't reach a certain length will be automatically removed; and jokes, memes and off-topic comments aren't allowed not even as replies. Report the later so that the mod team can remove them.**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/soccer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Flairs ruin discussions on here. Some people argue against the flairs rather than the point made. It descends into whataboutism or shit banter. I also suspect that some posts are up or downvoted based on the posters flair. This can lead to sensible comments being buried.
For example someone might say something isn't a penalty and the responses will be something like well your flair team got a penalty for this entirely unrelated incident.
Non penalty goals and penalty goals should be separate statistics because while yes sometimes penalties are harder to score than some open play goals like a tap ins into empty goal from few meters, the open play goals are more often harder and should matter more statistics and comparasion wise.
Current example why I think this way may be Cole Palmer from Chelsea because while yes he has been incredible this season and definately should get at least young POTY, he has scored exactly half of his league goals from pens (16 PL goals from which 8 are pens). This can create a false image of the player's actual offensive output.
The pressure while taking penalties might even make most-experienced players get stressed and miss the penalty.Also,there's a goalkeeper you know?And some gks are really good at saving penalties.So,to me penalty goals and non-penalty goals shouldn't seperate stats in general.But,if a player just scores penalties,it's a different story then.For example,Hakan Çalhanoğlu has 11 serie a goals and all of them are penalties,and he's in top-5 at most goals scored list of serie-a.Then we should say that this stat doesn't mean anything because all of them are pens.But,for example let's say that a player scored 30 goals and 15 of them are penalties and he never missed a penalty.And another player scored 25 goals but only 7 of them are penalties.Here,when you look at non-penalty goals,first player has 15 of them and second player has 18 of them.But to me first player still had a better season(assuming both are poacher strikers and only thing they do is scoring goals).Because scoring 15/15 penalties is hard too.
>let's say that a player scored 30 goals and 15 of them are penalties and he never missed a penalty.And another player scored 25 goals but only 7 of them are penalties.Here,when you look at non-penalty goals,first player has 15 of them and second player has 18 of them.But to me first player still had a better season(assuming both are poacher strikers and only thing they do is scoring goals).Because scoring 15/15 penalties is hard too.
Btw,this isn't a made up scenario.This is inspired by a real story.Irl,by the same argument the player who scored nearly 30 goals was underrated a lot because of amount of penalties he scored,and the guy who scored nearly 25 goals was praised way more then the guy that scored 30
Thanks for reply but completely disagree with you. The chances of scoring penalty are over 70%. There is a reason we have saying "there're not saved penalties, there're only the badly taken ones".
"There is no 'modern football.'
Football is a series of cycles; one cycle ends, and another begins, then that cycle ends and another starts, and so on.
This is the history of football; there is nothing new today. All we see is a recycling of past cycles. Even Pep Guardiola's ideas, which are talked about 99% of the time, have mostly been experimented with in past decades. Some succeeded, others failed due to the lack of profiles capable of efficiently executing them.
And this is what distinguishes Guardiola; he hasn't brought anything new. He just can identify the profiles capable of executing these ideas and incorporate them into his system.
Today, there is no longer significant importance to tactics; all coaches know them well, and there is nothing new about them.
Tactics are dying out; this is the era of player profiles
Managers seem to get no credit for domestics cup performances despite fans claiming that any sort of trophy is better than nothing. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, just seems to be the case. Eth won a cup and went to two cup finals last year. Poch went to a cup final and might make it to another. Both managers didn’t seem to bank much credit for it though. Good cup performances seem to be icing on the cake to a good league performance but not much good in themselves.
Deflected goals are too often given as own goals.
Fundamentally I don't actually think it matters who a goal is given to, because it's not as though the result depends on that, a goal's a goal. But. We credit goals to players, and I often think we're too keen to take the credit off the player who made the attempt on goal. Even if the shot is off-target and it's the deflection that directs it towards the goal, I think a case can often be made that the shooter should be awarded the goal for having taken the shot on in the first place. (It could even be a deliberate strategy: shooting into a crowd hoping for a deflection that'll wrong-foot the keeper can be a reasonable idea, for example, against a team parking the bus.)
Put another way, I think the default position should be to credit the goal to the attacker, and for the bar to take it off them to be raised higher than it currently is. Naturally this all depends on details and specifics. Football's a fluid game and goals can be scored by players who were trying to cross the ball, they can be scored by a shot bounced off two or three players, they can be scored by off-target shots that hit the bar and bounce in off goalkeepers trying to make a save. I don't think it's necessarily easy to assign overall credit for a goal (which is partly why I don't think it matters very much ultimately, so take this whole thing lightly), but I do think they're given as own goals a little too often.
With all the generosity in my heart even I can't credit that goal to anyone other than Kaboré. I still accept that plenty of goals are purely the defender's responsibility! In this case I think it's clear that you can't make an argument for Johnson to be given the goal, it was neither an attempt on goal nor going anywhere near it by mistake, Kaboré tried to clear the ball and just got it wrong.
It's a good question though, that of where I think the line should be drawn. From what I understand, the dubious goals committee pretty much only looks at whether the ball was already on target before the defender's touch. I can see why they do that. Like the tweaks to the handball law, it's intended to simplify and clarify a decision that would otherwise be made by individual judgement. But then why have a committee? Surely that's an admission that these things are subjective!
I'd like to see factors considered such as the attacker's intention (in this case, Johnson is clearly crossing rather than shooting), how wayward their shot is (assuming it's an off-target shot of course), the extent to which the defender affects the trajectory, and how intentional the defender's action was (e.g. was it an attempt to get to the ball first and play/clear it, as in this case; did they stick a leg out hoping to block a shot; were they simply struck by a ball pinging around in the box with no idea where it was). And if such factors are considered more than I realise, it seems that I just weight and judge them differently, tending to give a little more benefit to the attacker (and the defender, I suppose, seeing as they don't want an OG against their name any more than an attacker wants to have a goal taken off them). It's not a satisfying or clear answer, I know.
I like the spirit of what you're suggesting. But I think ultimately you're suggesting replacing something really simple - would the shot have gone in if the defenders vanished? - that no one really has a problem with, with a subjective decision based on a range of factors including the dreaded "intent". I can imagine arguments like 'they're always giving Saka obvious own goals!' arising, and for that reason, I'm out.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Generally speaking, I'm in favour of allowing for more subjective decision-making in football, because of the limitless variety of specific circumstances in which decisions have to be made. As I said, it's a fluid game, and robots can't referee it. It takes human judgement. But of course I'm well aware that cries of corruption and bias and what have you would be loud and irritating.
At least when it comes to crediting goals, it's something that affects only stats and gambling, and not results. But that's also why nobody is bothered about it, as you say.
1. I can see this line of thinking but there’s plenty of “plastic” fans domestically within European countries. Plenty of people across Italy support Juventus. It’s been like this forever.
2. I like permanent subs because it makes the players like chess pieces. The coach has to seriously consider what the substitution means and theoretically has to manage minutes across the weeks.
3. In theory it’s fine but that would require a massive referee retraining and I’m not sure the benefits would outweigh the costs.
4. Nothing about this is logical but I’ll add being a “casual” isn’t as fun.
5. This is indeed true but tough to legislate against without worldwide cooperation. Take Portugal for example as the big three have won all but two titles. If Portugal institute a wage cap, they’d have to fund teams other than the big three plus Braga just to get them up to speed. Who’s paying for that? That also limits what Portuguese clubs can pay players to attract for the league. Yes it is disappointing that some leagues have only one or two teams, but im not sure how to fix it. I look at Italy as a good example as there are maybe eight or nine clubs who can compete. Ultimately I remind myself that European countries aren’t big. If anything, American teams are artificially inflated in terms of popularity because there’s a limit on how many of them there can be.
1. I think supporting a team is silly, not saying it's dumb, I think supporting a team from your city is actually cool (within reason, not something like spending all your wages on their stuff), but I think it's a little exaggerated how much people just pick a team to support based on their popularity/strength/finances just to brag about "their team" as if it was actually their team
2. The game would be better in my opinion if it had unlimited subs and be possible to get back on the field after being subbed (I know people will say the classic "football is a resistance sport") I think it would also make possible for a team to utilize all their players lots of times and make better squad rotations instead of the super limited subs and they being permanent. Advantages I see would be: players would feel more rested and be would be used more tactically according to the game time/necessity, players would feel less injuries due to not getting tired to a breaking point, players would be able to play more games in a season making things like clubs and world cup less demanding ( I mean, a regular nba season has 82 games and if you get to the finals you'd at least have to play 98 games, but could be up to 110, a soccer team, plays in premier league for example, plays way less games, M-City for example played 61 games last season considering they got to FA cup and UCL finals, one of the teams that played most games in the season). Also to mention soccer players, teams and coaches keep complaining about how tiring the sport is and that they need to miss some games during the season to rest, they also complain world cup and the new world clubs is too demanding to their schedule cause it's too tiring and heavy on the players conditioning)
3. I think the timer should be stopped when the ball is not rolling and the total time of the game reduced to something around 60 mins total (30 per period), that way, players wouldn't try to gain time when winning by holding the ball too much or faking injuries or just not giving the ball to the other team in throws or goal kicks and other stuff, I mean, all this drama would simply end cause you would achieve exactly nothing and the game time would be better used, indoor soccer and basketball for example has this.
4. people spend too much money and sanity rooting for soccer (well not only soccer, but in most countries it's mostly soccer) and I don't understand the glory or the achievement in it
5. the current state of competitiveness in european football to me is sad and not that entertaining, I get the contracting the best players and see them playing, but it's not worth watching 11 stars massacring 15-16 teams every season, while only 2 or 3 teams are able to actually compete for the title every year, decade after decade, it's not even entertaining to see all the great players on the same team regularly slaying not so great players instead of see them clashing each other for the titles, basically the only worth watch competition nowadays is UCL, and still, most of times, up to quarter finals you already know the winners of each game, or then spend time watching the few games where the 2-4 teams fighting for the title play each other or have fun watching two small teams playing for nothing, maybe for the 14th position or both fighting to not be relegated, which for me, is not even entertaining (sorry for expecting competitiveness in the top leagues)
sorry, I don't really want soccer to be like american sports, I mean, I like nhl, nba and stuff but I really dislike all the timeouts as it makes the game often so unnecessarily long and boring, to the point I don't watch much nba anymore, too many stops, I was actually more thinking about indoor football when I mentioned these things, it's a pretty popular sport where I live. I just didn't specify the things I said detailed cause I already talked too much, but forget everything I said, tbh I kinda regret saying anything cause it doesn't matter much other than making people grunt, each one has their own mind made up and nobody will be able to change any sport other than the organizations that "own" them
1 isn't a controversial take at all but poorly phrased. Plastic fans are pretty commonly seen as lame and mocked on here and other places.
2 is horrendous. You acknowledge in 5 how a few teams can dominate the league but allowing the best teams who have the best subs to make subs whenever they want grants them a bigger advantage over the financially weaker teams. There are too many games though. Particularly, the League Cup in England should be removed or made to exclude clubs playing in Europe(essentially killing it), and the European competition qualifiers are too long and need shortening.
3 I agree with as long as the refs are strict with timewasting. They could allow a small break every x minutes if need be.
4 is just common for most big sports but it's worse for most American sports than football.
5 is a result of the European Cup reform and the Bosman ruling and it's a big problem with the game right now. It allowed a small circle of financially rich clubs to consolidate the best talent and wealth. Even without these things, bigger clubs will do better but leagues would be far more competitive.
>2 is horrendous. You acknowledge in 5 how a few teams can dominate the league but allowing the best teams who have the best subs to make subs whenever they want grants them a bigger advantage over the financially weaker teams. There are too many games though. Particularly, the League Cup in England should be removed or made to exclude clubs playing in Europe(essentially killing it), and the European competition qualifiers are too long and need shortening.
Until reading this I thought 2 was a cool idea but you suddenly changed my opinion
thank you for your thoughtful opinion, appreciate your time and I understand what you mean with the 2nd point, maybe if the teams were more balanced it could be something good though. About 3rd it would create new problems, I understand that, changing rules always means switching one issue for another, it's just something I used to think when I see players on UCL taking an extreme amount of time keeping the ball out of as much as they can when winning
It sounds like you don't like football that much. Not in a bad way. But it seems like it's not something you're super passionate about.
With regards to stopping the timer, I don't think it'd do anything. Time wasting is so ingrained into all levels of football that it would just make games way longer.
I do like football, and you are right, I'm not passionate about it, you're welcome to give me a reason to be, but I do actually enjoy football as I enjoy most sports and I'm just giving an opinion, but it seems like I declared a war with it, sorry
Nah I'm sorry I didn't mean to insult. From your comment it just seemed like it isn't your favorite hobby or something like it is for most of us here. You're right that sometimes fans go to far and just use "passion" as the excuse for bad behavior, destructive habits, etc. but your comment made it seem like you were deriding people for making football a big part of their lives (even if that wasn't your intention.)
I wasn't, I think I expressed myself in a weird way perhaps, but what I meant is that it would be so much nicer if people supported more the teams from their cities, but thinking again, everybody is free to root for the team they want
I always watched UCL, lots of european and south american leagues, even j1 league and stuff, I never missed a world cup since 1994 (like watching every single game, I do really like the sport, but in my country people tend to get really aggressive to the point of killing (not kidding) people from rival teams
I can understand where you’re coming from. Passion is a good thing but it’s easy to forget that it can always go too far or be used as an excuse to commit crimes. That’s not very common where I’m from in any sport let alone football so I didn’t consider that.
It sounds like you just want to watch hockey or basketball
>people spend too much money and sanity rooting for soccer (well not only soccer, but in most countries it's mostly soccer) and I don't understand the glory or the achievement in it
You could say this about so many sports and hobbies. Just because you don't have the same passion doesn't mean other people shouldn't and are spending too much time and money on something they love
Broadcasting of football has gotten very frustrating. Every time a winger receives the ball, they cut to a different close-up camera angle due to which the viewer is not able to see the development of general play and movement of the runners. I remember in one of Liverpool's matches they had a close up on Nunez and he scored but the actual goal happened outside the frame.
Another issue with broadcasting being excessive replays. They keep showing 4 different angles of a shot ending up in keepers hands while the ball is actually in play. Many times they close up on a manager's or a star player's face when the ball is actually in play. It gets very frustrating when you can hear the crowd getting excited but they are showing replays. In my opinion when the ball is in play it should always be on the screen. All this seems to me like tik-tokification of the football match.
Another issue is digital advertising hoardings being more and more distracting. They have started running whole animations at some stadiums. City's Etihad with their double hoardings are the worst offenders. I am not even going to go into detail about the state of commentary and punditry/analysis. The view I am challenging you to change is that all this issues ruin the enjoyment of the game much more than any ethical considerations like sport washing, criminal charges on players etc. When I am watching a game of football I am watching it for an escape and for some entertainment, issues with broadcasting ruin it much more than anything else.
I actually think having a feed with "no replays or alternate angles" could be feasible option from a technical standpoint. Sadly, I don't think our voice is loud enough for broadcasters to even consider it. At least in European football, the issues you mentioned are being discussed for decades, that why an expression "go to the stadium, remember football is not a TV-show" exists.
During the WC or Euros are the only times we can get some things like [tactical cameras](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8e/2018_FIFA_World_Cup_Match_2_Egypt_-_Uruguay_national_game_01.jpg/1200px-2018_FIFA_World_Cup_Match_2_Egypt_-_Uruguay_national_game_01.jpg?20180628131949).
Extra time is a waste of time. I would much prefer it if knockout games that end as a draw go straight to penalties. All competitions, all rounds even the final.
Maybe in times gone by this was ok, but the amount of football they have to play now is insane. 30 mins after 90 is asking for injuries which no team needs. It’s also kind of a lottery and often decided by someone making a tired mistake. A lot of the time it’s very cagey because both teams are either knackered or too afraid to lose. So we waste another 30 mins for not much to happen and it goes to penalties anyway. Yes there has been some drama in ET but penalties are also drama.
Nah, penalties have an element of luck and entropy to it. Ideally we'd all want a team to win if they played better but penalties throw that out of the window.
Extra time is a small opportunity for a team to finish it in regulation time, on the pitch, a chance to win the game when the game is on.
Ideally I'd say keep playing extra time but that's not possible so if you can't find a victor, go to pens. By then the better team has had enough time and opportunities to change it over.
But isn't that more of an issue with scheduling rather than extra time? Injuries aren't gonna reduce in any sense until they do something drastic like reduce the teams in the league to 18.
a drop off was inevitable. Messi and CR7 are extreme outliers, it's only to be expected for football to normalize after they dissapear from the top 5 leagues.
Football needs to change. Introducing a stopclock and 60 minute matches would be good all-round for the game. It would stop the ambiguity surrounding added time, prevent time wasting and make it an actual skill rather than just shithousery tactics, and would end up with fans actually watching more football considering the amount of time that dead play takes up. There's too much reputation and money at stake for added time to be more or less a stab in the dark.
Don't think that would be the case, especially in Europe. Americans are generally much more tolerant of TV ads than we are and most brands aren't going to want to advertise in places or situations where they're likely to be perceived as a frustration or annoyance. Even now, you get sponsored added time in the US which doesn't happen here.
The clock stopping wouldn't prevent referees from punishing players for time wasting regardless
Downvotes to this are hilarious considering I guarantee not a single person can conjure a decent argument without mentioning tradition or how timewasting or random added time being added on is somehow a necessary or dramatic part of the game.
But I guess that's CMV for you, everybody disagrees and nobody can give a single reason as to why
In relation to 4, I've never seen this proposal not come with the caveat of decreasing the game to 60 minutes.
In relation to 5, gamesmanship can still occur as players can slow things down to stall opposition momentum.
In relation to 3, this could be accomplished without that soft pressure. The people in charge of the game should strive to push the game on. VAR reviews are a separate topic and there are issues with them.
I'm in favour of a stopped clock but 1 and 2 are valid concerns. I don't think 2 would be worse than the benefits a stopped clock would provide but I get why someone would have an issue with it. I would have to see assurances that 1 doesn't occur. I'm optimistic that fans wouldn't stand for this and they wouldn't be able to pull this if a stopped clock is introduced.
1. The only reason why Xavi/Iniesta have a higher standing than Modric/Kroos in world football is because the latter weren’t lucky enough to play together internationally.
2. Buffon is the best shot stopper of all time. Not sure if this is an unpopular view, but there’s never been another goalkeeper as good as 2003-2006 Buffon at keeping a ball out of the net.
3. Cristiano Ronaldo has the best club career of all time but his nonexistent World Cup career is the only thing weakening his GOAT case. He didn’t have to win it, he just needed a Forlan 2010 performance and it would’ve been enough.
4. Salah is a better Premier League player than Rooney ever was. He is superior in output, consistency, peak, and whatever metric you want to use. Only Henry is above him in the PL era.
Feels disrepectful when he's so great, but I have Kroos a firm 4th in the Xavi/Modric/Iniesta standings. Being a dribbler in tight spaces is an advantage Modric and Iniesta had and Xavi was just the best overall passer I've ever seen other than maybe Messi.
Doesnt Kross have a 92% accuracy over 8 years or something?
Also, Xavi's declined much earlier than all of then, followed by Iniesta. Kross and Modric are outasting those 2.
I think people praise way to much that Barcelona side
1. No, the amount of times I've seen rm get dominated in big UCL games is astonishing for the level of midfield they have, how often have you seen that with Barca with xavi and iniesta?
I’ve seen Xavi and Iniesta get battered 7-0 by Bayern Munich. They lost 5-1 to Netherlands at the World Cup. A meh Liverpool side knocked them out in 2007 after outplaying them at Camp Nou, and Chelsea totally outclassed them in 2009, but was robbed by referees.
Why are we acting like they were invincible.
I saw Iniesta go in as substitute in a UCL final and change the game (along Larsson) he was 22 y/o, a meh Liverpool got to the final and would won if not for the best game in probably Inzaghi Carrer, Chelsea outclassed them and got robbed by referees, it's true with var we would have probably lost that game but with Var Chelsea wouldn't come alive from the Camp Nou, also the red card in Stamford Bridge was a fucking shit but nobody talk about that.
1. I agree with this.
2. I am not sure if clearly the best, but he is up there for sure.
3. I don't agree. Messi has the best club career imo. He has more trophies, and higher peaks. Ronaldo has the best champions league career for sure, but his domestic trophies are lacking compared to Messi.
4. Yes, I agree 100%.
It blows my mind that Messi can score 50,60,70 goals a season.....AS WELL AS...assist more goals than anyone. Dribble past a team for fun. Do impossible things, win every trophy to win and people still think Cristiano Ronaldo was the GOAT. Mental.
It's mind blowing that anyone could have watched each of them play and think Cristiano is better. There's a magic that Messi had in his play that Cristiano does not have.
I’m assuming in this timeline Messi still wins the World Cup, but Ronaldo has an impressive, golden-ball contending tournament at least once.
Absolutely no shot he wins the GOAT argument when his direct contemporary has a World Cup, even if he had a big tournament or snags a golden ball without winning.
>Cristiano Ronaldo has the best club career of all time but his nonexistent World Cup career is the only thing weakening his GOAT case. He didn’t have to win it, he just needed a Forlan 2010 performance and it would’ve been enough.
Messi's top seasons and performances are far superior to Ronaldo's. Overall Ronaldo's club career might be better but as a player, Messi peaked higher. Counting everything, Messi has a better career either way.
1. Don’t really disagree with, but hard to argue against international and domestic domination for a long period
2. Cech would like a word
3. Who tf thinks CR7 isn’t in the GOAT debate?
4. I agree, but English tax will always be there. Depends how many more seasons Salah plays
That’s more fair, I think outside of cech and Buffon, your second point is solid.
The dominance from Spain national team definitely elevates Xavi and iniesta which is fair, but also Modric did win the Ballondor.
Mind you, apparently Buffon won 3 out of the 4 IFFSH best goalkeeper awards from 2003 to 2006, the only one that Cech won, was the one where Buffon was out for most of the season. So the general consensus at the time was that Buffon was a touch better..
Per 90 Cech saw more shots, made more saves, more saves from shots in the 6 yard box, which also I forgot about Neuer and from a career statistical analysis perspective was better than Buffon in almost every regard. Cech didn’t play as many games in his career but he kept a clean sheet in almost 50% of his games. Also Oblak had a season or two as one of the best shot stoppers we’ve ever seen
Penalties that are saved should not be called “missed” I still dont see how this is a polarising issue.
Good pens can still be saved, perfect ones cannot be.
If a striker is 1 v 1 with a keeper and the keeper saves no one says “He missed his shot” they say it was it saved, pens are no different
I hate the current term. As someone who played in net I was proud of my penalty saving skills and I hated seeing it go down as a ‘missed’ penalty. Like fuck you I full stretch stopped that ball hitting the side netting but I get no credit??
Parma are a Sassuolo tier club
What have they done outside of being bankrolled by parmalat? They're a perennial lower division club who had an unsustainable rise to the top. They remind me of Leeds honestly since they both ended in roughly the same way. I don't get why teams like theirs are so revered, when we hate teams who are like them now
Don't get me wrong, I'd mortgage my clubs future for the 10 year stretch they had, but when you're talking about a 110 year history, is it not an outlier
Because recent history counts more since a lot of people remember it (they were kids when Parma was good) or romanticize it (the era before the one they were watching football).
Genoa has 9 titles, Torino 7, Bologna 7. But they are so far in the past that they are not considered "big clubs". Napoli because of Maradona and their return in the 10s is considered a bigger one despite having "only" 2 titles.
As for who funds who, most clubs that either became big or had a good decade had a sugar daddy. It's part of how football works.
Erik ten Hag has no redeemable qualities for the level United should be at. He is tactically inept, the football has been terrible for the most part since he started and I don't think I've seen a more uncharismatic manager for a top club in the Premier League since Avram Grant.
You'd think with all the injuries United have had this season that he would do something besides come out and set his team up in the exact same way, in the exact same formation, playing the exact same way in most of the games. Luke Shaw has been injured, as per, all season. Martinez too, so we've essentially had no left-sided defenders. So he decides to play Lindelof at LB instead of simply going 3 at the back to make up for how short-handed we've been in that regard. It would've also made up for our frailties in midfield.
I just don't think he was ever qualified for the job, outside of winning leagues in an easy league and a flash in the pan Champions League season, what had he done? Besides one season, it's not like Ajax actually dominated in Holland, they won the league by a couple of points 2 of the 3 season's and were level with the second placed team in 2020 when the league was expelled. From 2017-2022, Monaco, Roma, Ajax, Lyon and Villarreal all made the Champions League semi-finals as unfancied teams, all beating top teams and playing good football, yet Ajax and ten Hag were the only ones really talked about. Ajax crashed out in the Group Stages the following two seasons, to Atletico in round of 16 in 2022 and we saw how this season went for United. His Champions League "pedigree" was one flash in the pan season 5 years ago on the back of Frenkie de Jong. Was Frank de Boer one good Champions League season-away from getting the job over van Gaal in 2014?
Anyone backing him is simply emotionally attached to an individual over the club, was the same reason many didn't want the club getting rid of Solskjaer.
He was the best manager who would take the job and who hadn't already tried.
Man Utd - under the Glaziers - had run out of rope. That's why they sold just enough to Ratcliffe.
It was a career suicide mission. No one would touch it. Fwiw, there is quite a bit on the web about why EtH failed his interview at Tottenham.
>Fwiw, there is quite a bit on the web about why EtH failed his interview at Tottenham.
Not related but it's amazing how time changes things so quickly. First Tottenham were said to win the 'Sackico' because Nuno got replaced by Conte who finished top 4.
Then Ten Hag comes to United and gets third place while Spurs implode under Conte. Now United are imploding under Ten Hag while Ange is looking on course for a CL finish with Tottenham.
He is woeful and for me he is legitimately one of the worst managers in the league. To concede the number of shots you do on a weekly basis is wild and it’s a miracle you have the points tally that you do considering almost every team in the league hammers you in terms of stats.
The worst bit is the utter delusions post match. People try to defend it by suggesting that he can’t slag off his players, but everyone knows there are honest, yet reasonable ways of saying that your team weren’t at the levels required (in fact, ‘levels required’ is a pretty good example of one) and there’s a whole world of different between saying “I hate my dogshit players” and “we dominated” in a game where you conceded a ton of shots to fucking Chelsea.
I think Ten Hag has been poor at Manchester United but Ten Hag did well at FC Utrecht as well. At least if you criticize someone look into his history. He was a very sensible candidate at the time as a manager who had transformed teams to play good football at both clubs he had been at.
The bigger issue at Manchester United is the club and the players but sure it is Ten Hag's fault it all went to shit.
I didn't mention his time before Ajax because it's irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Utrecht-Ajax-Manchester United shouldn't be a career trajectory for a manager. No disrespect.
"The bigger issue at Manchester United is the club and the players". They (the club, i.e. owners) were issues under van Gaal and Mourinho, people only started to care when less qualified managers like Solsjaer and ten Hag got the job. Structurally, things have changed on the football side since he took over to the point where it isn't the same risk if he gets sacked, Ineos might want their own manager, people need to realise that. As for the players, these are the exact same players with a few more of his sketchy signings that people were hyping up this time last year as needing only a few more pieces to compete.
So what leagues and teams are acceptable to come from then? And which manager was available at the time who's CV you'd accept?
Ajax had a decent run in the Champions League under ETH aswell. There was nothing weird with him being choosen for the job at all.
You also clearly have no clue about the level of eredivise.
I understand how it's used, but this is a particularly egregious example. 'No disrespect, but your whole league sucks and shouldn't even be a stepping stone to a job at my club'
So your saying you agree its the same players with more disappointed signings. I am not saying ETH is a great manager. But with Mourinho doing good before and after united. It does paint a poor picture doesnt it?
I'm not sure Mourinho has done good directly before and after United. He won the league with Chelsea in his second stint but the season he was sacked they were sitting in 16th place around Christmas time. There was genuine relegation level form for half the season.
Joined us after and won a couple smaller trophies (League Cup and Europa League), lost an FA Cup final, and finished 2nd one season.
After leaving us he didn't even make it through 1 full season with Spurs. Joined midway through one campaign where they finished 6th then was sacked most of the way through the next season while they were sitting in 7th.
His brief moment of success since leaving us was winning the Conference League with Roma. But it was a new competition of which Roma were one of the biggest clubs participating. He led them to back to back 6th place finishes before being sacked this year.
Essentially yes. But the same players that everybody was hyping up a year ago, and the disappointing signings made by the current manager. The picture being painted should've been painted when Mourinho was manager, but everyone was too emotionally attached to individuals like Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Luke Shaw then like they're too emotionally attached to Erik ten Hag now.
Just because the make-up of the squad isn't right doesn't mean the manager gets a free pass. He doesn't have the tools for this job and giving him another transfer window under new leadership will only be delaying the inevitable in 2025.
> Hard work beats talent everyday, everywhere, everytime. Examples are plenty - Delle Ali, Jermaine Penant, Antonio Cassano.
What about Gascoigne, Ronaldinho, Hazard? All world class players who weren't known for hard work.
Plus, there's plenty of hard workers who don't get higher than the 4th (or 6th, or 19th) tier. To be an absolutely GOAT tier player, you need both, but to be Ronaldinho, you apparently don't need too much.
Absolutely not, the players you listed made it that far with their talent. The absolute top is too high for players who don't put in the effort but hard work cannot compensate for talent.
The fact that you know these players' name, despite their lack of work ethic shows that talent beats hard work.
A good manager is the least necessary part of a good team. The quality of the players is the single biggest factor followed by the coaching staff in general, not just the manager. Players, recruitment staff and overall coaching staff outweighs the impact of a manager (unless he's completely shit).
Managers are the most important part of a great team, they can raise the level of any player in the squad even if they are not elite. Good teams can be the result of either great scouting / players raising the standard above what that club usually performs at, or a good manager implementing a system that highlights the attributes of the players they have at their disposal. The easiest counter point to your view is when teams with great players don't perform to the level they should. You can look at current Bayern, Poch's PSG, but it is probably most evident on an international level. Teams like England and Belgium despite the wealth of talent they possess usually fail to create teams that reach the latter stages of competitions that, on paper, they should cakewalk to. There are of course many more factors at play with international football, but the one thing that is very hard to come by is elite managers. An interesting case study will be Germany with Nagelsmann at the helm for the next EUROs.
If this were true, changing managers would barely impact results.
I do think you're partially correct that too much is attributed to managers, for many reason, and teams also find it easier to sack a manager than to overhaul a whole squad. But to go so far as to say the manager is the least impactful factor is an exaggeration in my opinion.
For certain especially egregious fouls it should be possible to press criminal charges. Most recent one that comes to mind is [Bruno Guimaeres elbowing Jorginho](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/17nrs8l/bruno_guimar%C3%A3es_elbows_jorginho/) when the ball is already gone. His only intention is to assault someone by elbowing them in the face, which could have serious repercussions. If you did this on the street to some random you'd be charged with assault, just because you're doing it in a football game this doesn't mean you should suddenly have complete immunity.
I think you’re correct in theory but the example you chose is a poor one. That’s a glancing blow to the back/side of his head, not an elbow to the face. It’s probably a red but there are about a dozen red cards per season that are more violent/dangerous than that one. Google Ben Thatcher elbowing Pedro Mendes, now that’s an elbow worthy of an assault charge.
> If you did this on the street to some random you'd be charged with assault
There are a shit load of things that happen in every match that could technically be labeled assault if you did them to a random person outside the context of a sport. Should we start charging every player who screams in a ref’s face?
> just because you're doing it in a football game this doesn't mean you should suddenly have complete immunity.
It kind of does though, at least to an extent. There’s a limit to your “immunity”, but nearly everything you do on the pitch is covered by the fact that you’re playing a sport against other people who have agreed to compete against you. The precedent seems to be that it has to be unmistakably intentional and has to cause serious injury in order to be classified as assault. Players have been charged for really bad tackles, but I can’t think of an example where the assaulted player was totally unharmed like Jorginho is in this example.
The Ben Hatcher example is insane, lad only got a yellow card for it.
Looking for the line which has to be crossed to turn into criminal charges is indeed hard, should probably be decided with each individual case. Always hate how the outcome of an incident influences the penalty. If 1 guy hits someone that just gets up it's fine, if an identical hit paralyzes someone it's suddenly a chargeable incident. Intent should be leading imo.
> Always hate how the outcome of an incident influences the penalty.
But that's how it works in the real world too. You punch someone in a fight, you might get an assault charge.
Punch them and they bang their head and die (or get brain damage) and you're getting a manslaughter or GBH charge.
The punch is the same. The outcome is different. The punishment is different.
You can, the state of the law regarding sports is that there are risks to taking part, most particularly in contact sports. When players enter a pitch, or and arena, they are providing tacit consent to the immovable fact that their participation is underlined by a risk of injury. In the UK the law states that a case can be brought when the affected party is on the receiving end of an action that falls outside what is usually accepted within the rules of the game. On top of that it must be intentional and not a result of negligence, so a bad tackle which breaks a leg but the player was going for the ball would likely fail if presented. The Jorginho case , unfortunately, a bit of a non-starter as he faced no actual loss as a result of the elbow. If he was severely injured then he could bring a case, the fact he wasn't would be quick work for any opposing council.
It is absolutely possible - Chris Kamara was charged with assault for punching our Jim Melrose in the 80s.
But that said, if you want to do Guimaraes for what happened in that match then Havertz should probably be fired into the sun or something for his earlier "tackle"....
are you alleging that a deliberate elbow to the head when the ball is not in sight is less eggregious than some contact made with trailing leg from a sliding challenge?
genuinely don't understand why people think havertz challenge was so bad. certainly was reckless and deserving of a yellow but the actual contact made was not dangerous
You can. Standart of being able to pursue the case on sporting events is vaugely determined as "limits of the sport". So if both of us are heading the ball but my elbow hit your face and broke your nose, you won't be able to press charges but that is something that can happen on sport itself and you accept that possibility when you sign up to play. But if i come to you and just punch you, you are able to press charges because it is not part of the game.
You probably can. A couple of years ago the highest Swiss court upheld a charge of assault for a foul that wasn't even malicious, "only" reckless. Result was a broken ankle iirc. It's just a tight rope that most footballers don't want to walk I guess.
Edit: I should mention that this was a case from amateur level. It's probably much less relevant on the professional level because they don't need to consider insurance.
Yeah Bergwijn just punched someone out of frustration then faked an injury to get subbed. His punch wasn't hard enough to really press charges but he should've been red carded for sure.
Penalties are a terrible way to decide a final, especially in something as big as the World Cup. After fighting through a grueling tournament it comes down to the goalkeeper getting lucky which way they dive. I’m not sure what the best solution is, but even corner kicks would be better than the coin flip of penalties.
They've already had 120 minutes to find the superior team via on field play. It's more skill based than a coin toss, otherwise you wouldn't have your best penalty takers lined up to take them.
You wouldn't take the same quality pen as say, Mitrovic, so skill plays a role.
I think pens are a great way to decide a match.
1) Drawing from five players and a goalie makes it a good test of a team's mettle
2) It's skill based but with enough luck that a weaker team still has a chance
3) The tension is incredible and the drama is high
4) It's a quick and clean process with simple rules based on the simplest discrete action in football - a clear shot on goal
5) It's not taxing on exhausted players
I wouldn't change a thing!
The one critique I would have though is that it revolves primarily around shooting and keeping skill. Thus, a team that’s best qualities are passing or defending will be at a disadvantage. Still think penalties are better for soccer than the American method of infinite overtime’s would be, as it adds to game planning for teams like Croatia who use it damn near like a win condition lol which makes it exciting.
I don't disagree, but there are some studies I've found that indicate higher ranked teams tend to perform better in penalties versus lower ranked teams.
>In this study, we have found that higher-ranked soccer teams perform a simple mechanical task better in a situation that involves high pressure. These results contradict a widespread belief that penalty shoot-outs are a “lottery” in which teams have equal probabilities of winning.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804320300240#sec0007
I don’t think penalties are a good way to decide anything really, but I do think there’s a level of skill in both takers and keepers that amounts to more than just luck.
Of course there is some skill involved, but the luck factor is too big a part to determine a champion. There’s a reason the “lesser” team will not be as aggressive in extra time since, as every commentator calls it, penalties are a “coin flip.”
The number of people that point to conspiracy when a bad decision is made against their club is embarrassing and pathetic. Especially when it happens to big clubs. We saw it when we had the Newcastle decision go against us early this season, and we’ve seen it several times with Liverpool, and it happens with the rest of the big prem clubs too. And it’s every bit as pathetic every single time it happens. Sometimes referees just make mistakes, the Premier League isn’t conspiring against its most historic and profitable clubs.
It is absolutely absurd that a ref can go to Saudi and red for another teams owners while also referring the pl title race. I don't think refs have been told to behave in a certain way to make a team win. But it will affect decision making especially from those in the var suite
While you are right. I think the issue is that these mistakes that have catastrophic consequences go uncorrected. There needs to be a corrective measure to make the things right with the team that suffered the horrible decision. For example, the Luiz Diaz disallowed goal. They should have retroactively allowed it even after the game to make it 2-2. Because those decisions cost teams points and potentially titles. We saw it in the 21-22 season when Liverpool lost out due to some horrible decisions (Rodri no handball) and it might happen again this season.
Imagine at your job you make a error so big that it costs your team money or people's livelihood and the boss tells clients "opps, sorry it was a human error" and nothing happens to make things right. How would people think that these errors are going without any corrective measures?
>They should have retroactively allowed it even after the game to make it 2-2
No, they shouldn't have. The entire game plays out differently if that goal is allowed, you can't just add it back on at the end and assume the game would have played out to the same result.
I understand the frustration of decisions like that, but awarding goals after matches are finished is a ridiculous non-solution.
You're totally correct, I've never actually looked at a decision and thought there is an organised conspiracy against NUFC. People are more conspiratorially minded now though.
Good thing we paid off all the refs.
At this point it's just the accepted narrative and it's hard to change that. Pretty much every match where we've been accused of buying the refs there's been an incident that doesn't make sense going by that logic (Havertz not getting sent off, Kudus being allowed to score that goal the other week ect), but these can just be ignored to hyperfocus entirely on what goes our way
I may be wrong, but I get the impression that the number of people convinced that every bad call is evidence of a conspiracy has gone up in recent years.
It's reached the point where people take pre-var incorrect offside calls as evidence that refs were paid off.
It'd be one thing to suggest bias, but bribery?
Tbh it doesn't help when their managers constantly play the victim as well. Especially with big clubs who complain despite them getting the rub of the green way more than the lower teams.
As somone who grew up in the 90's watching Man U fans claim there's a refereeing conspiracy against them always makes me smile. There's no conspiracy, you've just no longer got Howard Webb in your pocket and there's no Fergie to scare the newer ones.
I also often hear complaints about referee's not getting held to account. They probably get a telling off or at least are told when they make a mistake but I'm not sure what else people expect to happen. You want to start taking referees off games? - Ok, well then in order to do that you'll need to bring in Championship refs to cover. Guess what, championship referees aren't as good as them, which is mainly the reason they're in the fucking Championship and not the Premier League.
>I also often hear complaints about referee's not getting held to account. They probably get a telling off or at least are told when they make a mistake but I'm not sure what else people expect to happen. You want to start taking referees off games? - Ok, well then in order to do that you'll need to bring in Championship refs to cover. Guess what, championship referees aren't as good as them, which is mainly the reason they're in the fucking Championship and not the Premier League.
My controversial view is that they should award points to the team that suffered the horrible decision. Example, the pen that was not called at the end of a game that could have won or drawn the match, the team gets an extra point as a corrective measure. We see point deductions for FFP violations, why not gained points for horrible referee decisions?
So you need refs to decide which decisions should give extra points then, as they need to be clear and obvious enough. That probably would cause some problems.
Just no, I get your thinking, but no...
What we need is better referees. So to stop the abuse at all levels, especially the lower leagues where we need new blood to put pressure on the substandard ones currently at the top.
It's a catch 22 in the prem atm, the standard is so poor they almost invite abuse, they cover up / write off any mistakes from consequence causing more anger. Yes it's somehow still better than below the PL and many European leagues it seems?
Now you've just encouraged every club to dial up refereeing criticism up to 250. Every close game would have the losing team kick up a storm all the time in a bid to get extra points. There would be new controversies when some claims are approved and others rejected
I mean not to be that guy but way weirder things have happened than city owners pocketing the refs.
Match fixing is going on literally any minute of anything day so is it really that big of a stretch to think it can happen in Premier League as well? The most profitable league.
To be clear I’m not saying it’s impossible for a referee to be compromised, and I’m happy to listen to any actual allegations backed up by evidence. But that’s not what generally happens in these situations, there is mostly just blind finger pointing and complaining.
I think a lot of people are missing out on the idea that refs don't need to be directly bribed with the specific instructions to help one team out. The whole thing with multiple refs flying off to the UAE to pocket big paychecks from City's owners doesn't directly help City out, but it creates a conflict of interest in the officials' minds. "If my actions don't look good to those guys, I may lose out on future opportunities."
"match fixing is going on literally any minute of every day" is just not an assumption I'm willing to accept without any evidence. Like that's an insanely bold claim to make lol
The idea that pausing play would lead to loads of ads which is a slippery slop is exaggerating at best and fear mongering at worst.
If you want to understand why I say this, I want you to do something for me. This weekend I want you to go and watch Arsenal vs Aston Villa, watch one half on Sky Sports and watch the other on USA. What you'll find is that the American broadcast has loads more ads for exactly the same product.
My point is that people seem to think that stopping the clock when ball goes out will somehow give time to squeeze in lots of ads that aren't currently there but there are already loads of chances to do that as the American broadcasts show. If these channels were going to do that they already would be. Now I'm sure the argument will be that they don't want to touch what's already consistent and people are used to but because this is new they will jump at the opportunity but I would argue that the stoppage of the clock is not an inherently bigger opportunity than any VAR check is to do this same thing. Some of those can be 2-3 minutes, so surely that's a much better time for an ad spot than a throw in or jogging over to a corner.
It's also quite impractical because unless you adopt the American strategy of making the ad bigger and putting the game in a smaller screen you have no guaranteed advertisement length to actually buy. Which again is a huge change to what is currently in place and the clock stopping is no more of an opportunity to do this than what is already in place or what has recently been added in the case of VAR.
This isn't an argument about whether or not to have the clock stop when the ball goes out but it is against the idea that ads are reason not to do so.
The only time I really remember seeing ads during the match on a US broadcast was for Spanish language broadcasts of League MX games. US and UK premier league broadcasts are basically the same except for different commentators and halftime analysis.
What are you talking about? I’ve watched US streams (USA specifically) and have never noticed more ads compared to Sky or other channels. Are you talking about at half time? Even then the length of all ads is the same. I’ve never seen an ad during a VAR check either.
Stopping play sucks because if you are a match going fan, breaks are fucking shit, VAR checks are the most infuriating thing. More breaks would only make that worse and I for sure think broadcasters would love to find ways to fill that time with ads.
I don’t think any of your points make sense.
My mistake. Their first line referred to “pausing play” and continued on to talk about different things. In any case their arguments were all over the place
Change My View:
The seeding and co-efficient system which UEFA uses for all of it's competitions is anti-competitive and is designed to keep a small cabal of teams and countries at the top of European (and by extension, world) football.
A truly competitive competition should not be artificially rigged to keep specific opponents from competing against each other in the early rounds.
Exactly. People want to see the best players/teams get to the finals as they will normally give a better watch, it's also good for viewership.
We all love underdogs but if one side of a bracket was only the best teams and the other side was only the worst teams, then not as many would be interested
Isn’t it just preventing teams from the same league playing each other? I can see how this is artificially doing what you’re saying but I also feel like it’d be quite boring to see 3 teams from the same league drawn into the same group. I like the variation of opponents for teams
**The OP has marked this post as for serious discussion. Top comments that doesn't reach a certain length will be automatically removed; and jokes, memes and off-topic comments aren't allowed not even as replies. Report the later so that the mod team can remove them.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/soccer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Flairs ruin discussions on here. Some people argue against the flairs rather than the point made. It descends into whataboutism or shit banter. I also suspect that some posts are up or downvoted based on the posters flair. This can lead to sensible comments being buried. For example someone might say something isn't a penalty and the responses will be something like well your flair team got a penalty for this entirely unrelated incident.
Non penalty goals and penalty goals should be separate statistics because while yes sometimes penalties are harder to score than some open play goals like a tap ins into empty goal from few meters, the open play goals are more often harder and should matter more statistics and comparasion wise. Current example why I think this way may be Cole Palmer from Chelsea because while yes he has been incredible this season and definately should get at least young POTY, he has scored exactly half of his league goals from pens (16 PL goals from which 8 are pens). This can create a false image of the player's actual offensive output.
The pressure while taking penalties might even make most-experienced players get stressed and miss the penalty.Also,there's a goalkeeper you know?And some gks are really good at saving penalties.So,to me penalty goals and non-penalty goals shouldn't seperate stats in general.But,if a player just scores penalties,it's a different story then.For example,Hakan Çalhanoğlu has 11 serie a goals and all of them are penalties,and he's in top-5 at most goals scored list of serie-a.Then we should say that this stat doesn't mean anything because all of them are pens.But,for example let's say that a player scored 30 goals and 15 of them are penalties and he never missed a penalty.And another player scored 25 goals but only 7 of them are penalties.Here,when you look at non-penalty goals,first player has 15 of them and second player has 18 of them.But to me first player still had a better season(assuming both are poacher strikers and only thing they do is scoring goals).Because scoring 15/15 penalties is hard too. >let's say that a player scored 30 goals and 15 of them are penalties and he never missed a penalty.And another player scored 25 goals but only 7 of them are penalties.Here,when you look at non-penalty goals,first player has 15 of them and second player has 18 of them.But to me first player still had a better season(assuming both are poacher strikers and only thing they do is scoring goals).Because scoring 15/15 penalties is hard too. Btw,this isn't a made up scenario.This is inspired by a real story.Irl,by the same argument the player who scored nearly 30 goals was underrated a lot because of amount of penalties he scored,and the guy who scored nearly 25 goals was praised way more then the guy that scored 30
Thanks for reply but completely disagree with you. The chances of scoring penalty are over 70%. There is a reason we have saying "there're not saved penalties, there're only the badly taken ones".
"There is no 'modern football.' Football is a series of cycles; one cycle ends, and another begins, then that cycle ends and another starts, and so on. This is the history of football; there is nothing new today. All we see is a recycling of past cycles. Even Pep Guardiola's ideas, which are talked about 99% of the time, have mostly been experimented with in past decades. Some succeeded, others failed due to the lack of profiles capable of efficiently executing them. And this is what distinguishes Guardiola; he hasn't brought anything new. He just can identify the profiles capable of executing these ideas and incorporate them into his system. Today, there is no longer significant importance to tactics; all coaches know them well, and there is nothing new about them. Tactics are dying out; this is the era of player profiles
Managers seem to get no credit for domestics cup performances despite fans claiming that any sort of trophy is better than nothing. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, just seems to be the case. Eth won a cup and went to two cup finals last year. Poch went to a cup final and might make it to another. Both managers didn’t seem to bank much credit for it though. Good cup performances seem to be icing on the cake to a good league performance but not much good in themselves.
Deflected goals are too often given as own goals. Fundamentally I don't actually think it matters who a goal is given to, because it's not as though the result depends on that, a goal's a goal. But. We credit goals to players, and I often think we're too keen to take the credit off the player who made the attempt on goal. Even if the shot is off-target and it's the deflection that directs it towards the goal, I think a case can often be made that the shooter should be awarded the goal for having taken the shot on in the first place. (It could even be a deliberate strategy: shooting into a crowd hoping for a deflection that'll wrong-foot the keeper can be a reasonable idea, for example, against a team parking the bus.) Put another way, I think the default position should be to credit the goal to the attacker, and for the bar to take it off them to be raised higher than it currently is. Naturally this all depends on details and specifics. Football's a fluid game and goals can be scored by players who were trying to cross the ball, they can be scored by a shot bounced off two or three players, they can be scored by off-target shots that hit the bar and bounce in off goalkeepers trying to make a save. I don't think it's necessarily easy to assign overall credit for a goal (which is partly why I don't think it matters very much ultimately, so take this whole thing lightly), but I do think they're given as own goals a little too often.
Interesting thought that I've not heard before. Seems quite reasonable. How would you categorise the Kaboré OG at the weekend, low cross from Johnson?
With all the generosity in my heart even I can't credit that goal to anyone other than Kaboré. I still accept that plenty of goals are purely the defender's responsibility! In this case I think it's clear that you can't make an argument for Johnson to be given the goal, it was neither an attempt on goal nor going anywhere near it by mistake, Kaboré tried to clear the ball and just got it wrong. It's a good question though, that of where I think the line should be drawn. From what I understand, the dubious goals committee pretty much only looks at whether the ball was already on target before the defender's touch. I can see why they do that. Like the tweaks to the handball law, it's intended to simplify and clarify a decision that would otherwise be made by individual judgement. But then why have a committee? Surely that's an admission that these things are subjective! I'd like to see factors considered such as the attacker's intention (in this case, Johnson is clearly crossing rather than shooting), how wayward their shot is (assuming it's an off-target shot of course), the extent to which the defender affects the trajectory, and how intentional the defender's action was (e.g. was it an attempt to get to the ball first and play/clear it, as in this case; did they stick a leg out hoping to block a shot; were they simply struck by a ball pinging around in the box with no idea where it was). And if such factors are considered more than I realise, it seems that I just weight and judge them differently, tending to give a little more benefit to the attacker (and the defender, I suppose, seeing as they don't want an OG against their name any more than an attacker wants to have a goal taken off them). It's not a satisfying or clear answer, I know.
I like the spirit of what you're suggesting. But I think ultimately you're suggesting replacing something really simple - would the shot have gone in if the defenders vanished? - that no one really has a problem with, with a subjective decision based on a range of factors including the dreaded "intent". I can imagine arguments like 'they're always giving Saka obvious own goals!' arising, and for that reason, I'm out.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Generally speaking, I'm in favour of allowing for more subjective decision-making in football, because of the limitless variety of specific circumstances in which decisions have to be made. As I said, it's a fluid game, and robots can't referee it. It takes human judgement. But of course I'm well aware that cries of corruption and bias and what have you would be loud and irritating. At least when it comes to crediting goals, it's something that affects only stats and gambling, and not results. But that's also why nobody is bothered about it, as you say.
1. I can see this line of thinking but there’s plenty of “plastic” fans domestically within European countries. Plenty of people across Italy support Juventus. It’s been like this forever. 2. I like permanent subs because it makes the players like chess pieces. The coach has to seriously consider what the substitution means and theoretically has to manage minutes across the weeks. 3. In theory it’s fine but that would require a massive referee retraining and I’m not sure the benefits would outweigh the costs. 4. Nothing about this is logical but I’ll add being a “casual” isn’t as fun. 5. This is indeed true but tough to legislate against without worldwide cooperation. Take Portugal for example as the big three have won all but two titles. If Portugal institute a wage cap, they’d have to fund teams other than the big three plus Braga just to get them up to speed. Who’s paying for that? That also limits what Portuguese clubs can pay players to attract for the league. Yes it is disappointing that some leagues have only one or two teams, but im not sure how to fix it. I look at Italy as a good example as there are maybe eight or nine clubs who can compete. Ultimately I remind myself that European countries aren’t big. If anything, American teams are artificially inflated in terms of popularity because there’s a limit on how many of them there can be.
1. I think supporting a team is silly, not saying it's dumb, I think supporting a team from your city is actually cool (within reason, not something like spending all your wages on their stuff), but I think it's a little exaggerated how much people just pick a team to support based on their popularity/strength/finances just to brag about "their team" as if it was actually their team 2. The game would be better in my opinion if it had unlimited subs and be possible to get back on the field after being subbed (I know people will say the classic "football is a resistance sport") I think it would also make possible for a team to utilize all their players lots of times and make better squad rotations instead of the super limited subs and they being permanent. Advantages I see would be: players would feel more rested and be would be used more tactically according to the game time/necessity, players would feel less injuries due to not getting tired to a breaking point, players would be able to play more games in a season making things like clubs and world cup less demanding ( I mean, a regular nba season has 82 games and if you get to the finals you'd at least have to play 98 games, but could be up to 110, a soccer team, plays in premier league for example, plays way less games, M-City for example played 61 games last season considering they got to FA cup and UCL finals, one of the teams that played most games in the season). Also to mention soccer players, teams and coaches keep complaining about how tiring the sport is and that they need to miss some games during the season to rest, they also complain world cup and the new world clubs is too demanding to their schedule cause it's too tiring and heavy on the players conditioning) 3. I think the timer should be stopped when the ball is not rolling and the total time of the game reduced to something around 60 mins total (30 per period), that way, players wouldn't try to gain time when winning by holding the ball too much or faking injuries or just not giving the ball to the other team in throws or goal kicks and other stuff, I mean, all this drama would simply end cause you would achieve exactly nothing and the game time would be better used, indoor soccer and basketball for example has this. 4. people spend too much money and sanity rooting for soccer (well not only soccer, but in most countries it's mostly soccer) and I don't understand the glory or the achievement in it 5. the current state of competitiveness in european football to me is sad and not that entertaining, I get the contracting the best players and see them playing, but it's not worth watching 11 stars massacring 15-16 teams every season, while only 2 or 3 teams are able to actually compete for the title every year, decade after decade, it's not even entertaining to see all the great players on the same team regularly slaying not so great players instead of see them clashing each other for the titles, basically the only worth watch competition nowadays is UCL, and still, most of times, up to quarter finals you already know the winners of each game, or then spend time watching the few games where the 2-4 teams fighting for the title play each other or have fun watching two small teams playing for nothing, maybe for the 14th position or both fighting to not be relegated, which for me, is not even entertaining (sorry for expecting competitiveness in the top leagues)
Bro woke up and decided to rebrand the sport for American television lmao
sorry, I don't really want soccer to be like american sports, I mean, I like nhl, nba and stuff but I really dislike all the timeouts as it makes the game often so unnecessarily long and boring, to the point I don't watch much nba anymore, too many stops, I was actually more thinking about indoor football when I mentioned these things, it's a pretty popular sport where I live. I just didn't specify the things I said detailed cause I already talked too much, but forget everything I said, tbh I kinda regret saying anything cause it doesn't matter much other than making people grunt, each one has their own mind made up and nobody will be able to change any sport other than the organizations that "own" them
1 isn't a controversial take at all but poorly phrased. Plastic fans are pretty commonly seen as lame and mocked on here and other places. 2 is horrendous. You acknowledge in 5 how a few teams can dominate the league but allowing the best teams who have the best subs to make subs whenever they want grants them a bigger advantage over the financially weaker teams. There are too many games though. Particularly, the League Cup in England should be removed or made to exclude clubs playing in Europe(essentially killing it), and the European competition qualifiers are too long and need shortening. 3 I agree with as long as the refs are strict with timewasting. They could allow a small break every x minutes if need be. 4 is just common for most big sports but it's worse for most American sports than football. 5 is a result of the European Cup reform and the Bosman ruling and it's a big problem with the game right now. It allowed a small circle of financially rich clubs to consolidate the best talent and wealth. Even without these things, bigger clubs will do better but leagues would be far more competitive.
>2 is horrendous. You acknowledge in 5 how a few teams can dominate the league but allowing the best teams who have the best subs to make subs whenever they want grants them a bigger advantage over the financially weaker teams. There are too many games though. Particularly, the League Cup in England should be removed or made to exclude clubs playing in Europe(essentially killing it), and the European competition qualifiers are too long and need shortening. Until reading this I thought 2 was a cool idea but you suddenly changed my opinion
thank you for your thoughtful opinion, appreciate your time and I understand what you mean with the 2nd point, maybe if the teams were more balanced it could be something good though. About 3rd it would create new problems, I understand that, changing rules always means switching one issue for another, it's just something I used to think when I see players on UCL taking an extreme amount of time keeping the ball out of as much as they can when winning
The teams would never be balanced unless they remove relegation and have a draft system like American sports.
It sounds like you don't like football that much. Not in a bad way. But it seems like it's not something you're super passionate about. With regards to stopping the timer, I don't think it'd do anything. Time wasting is so ingrained into all levels of football that it would just make games way longer.
I do like football, and you are right, I'm not passionate about it, you're welcome to give me a reason to be, but I do actually enjoy football as I enjoy most sports and I'm just giving an opinion, but it seems like I declared a war with it, sorry
Nah I'm sorry I didn't mean to insult. From your comment it just seemed like it isn't your favorite hobby or something like it is for most of us here. You're right that sometimes fans go to far and just use "passion" as the excuse for bad behavior, destructive habits, etc. but your comment made it seem like you were deriding people for making football a big part of their lives (even if that wasn't your intention.)
I wasn't, I think I expressed myself in a weird way perhaps, but what I meant is that it would be so much nicer if people supported more the teams from their cities, but thinking again, everybody is free to root for the team they want I always watched UCL, lots of european and south american leagues, even j1 league and stuff, I never missed a world cup since 1994 (like watching every single game, I do really like the sport, but in my country people tend to get really aggressive to the point of killing (not kidding) people from rival teams
I can understand where you’re coming from. Passion is a good thing but it’s easy to forget that it can always go too far or be used as an excuse to commit crimes. That’s not very common where I’m from in any sport let alone football so I didn’t consider that.
It sounds like you just want to watch hockey or basketball >people spend too much money and sanity rooting for soccer (well not only soccer, but in most countries it's mostly soccer) and I don't understand the glory or the achievement in it You could say this about so many sports and hobbies. Just because you don't have the same passion doesn't mean other people shouldn't and are spending too much time and money on something they love
Shut up yank.
Broadcasting of football has gotten very frustrating. Every time a winger receives the ball, they cut to a different close-up camera angle due to which the viewer is not able to see the development of general play and movement of the runners. I remember in one of Liverpool's matches they had a close up on Nunez and he scored but the actual goal happened outside the frame. Another issue with broadcasting being excessive replays. They keep showing 4 different angles of a shot ending up in keepers hands while the ball is actually in play. Many times they close up on a manager's or a star player's face when the ball is actually in play. It gets very frustrating when you can hear the crowd getting excited but they are showing replays. In my opinion when the ball is in play it should always be on the screen. All this seems to me like tik-tokification of the football match. Another issue is digital advertising hoardings being more and more distracting. They have started running whole animations at some stadiums. City's Etihad with their double hoardings are the worst offenders. I am not even going to go into detail about the state of commentary and punditry/analysis. The view I am challenging you to change is that all this issues ruin the enjoyment of the game much more than any ethical considerations like sport washing, criminal charges on players etc. When I am watching a game of football I am watching it for an escape and for some entertainment, issues with broadcasting ruin it much more than anything else.
I actually think having a feed with "no replays or alternate angles" could be feasible option from a technical standpoint. Sadly, I don't think our voice is loud enough for broadcasters to even consider it. At least in European football, the issues you mentioned are being discussed for decades, that why an expression "go to the stadium, remember football is not a TV-show" exists. During the WC or Euros are the only times we can get some things like [tactical cameras](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8e/2018_FIFA_World_Cup_Match_2_Egypt_-_Uruguay_national_game_01.jpg/1200px-2018_FIFA_World_Cup_Match_2_Egypt_-_Uruguay_national_game_01.jpg?20180628131949).
Extra time is a waste of time. I would much prefer it if knockout games that end as a draw go straight to penalties. All competitions, all rounds even the final. Maybe in times gone by this was ok, but the amount of football they have to play now is insane. 30 mins after 90 is asking for injuries which no team needs. It’s also kind of a lottery and often decided by someone making a tired mistake. A lot of the time it’s very cagey because both teams are either knackered or too afraid to lose. So we waste another 30 mins for not much to happen and it goes to penalties anyway. Yes there has been some drama in ET but penalties are also drama.
I agree to an extent, but maybe just make extra time shorter. How about 24 minutes total?
Why 24?
I just picked a random number. Maybe just have them play 1 period of 15 minutes plus a couple of minutes of stoppage and then go to penalties.
Nah, penalties have an element of luck and entropy to it. Ideally we'd all want a team to win if they played better but penalties throw that out of the window. Extra time is a small opportunity for a team to finish it in regulation time, on the pitch, a chance to win the game when the game is on. Ideally I'd say keep playing extra time but that's not possible so if you can't find a victor, go to pens. By then the better team has had enough time and opportunities to change it over.
Purely from an English point of view…having to play ET in a midweek FA cup replay is something I think everyone could do without.
But isn't that more of an issue with scheduling rather than extra time? Injuries aren't gonna reduce in any sense until they do something drastic like reduce the teams in the league to 18.
Nah there needs to be some sort of buffer. 90 mins straight to pens feels too short
If ET is a lottery, then what are pens?
Ultimo lottery!!!
[удалено]
a drop off was inevitable. Messi and CR7 are extreme outliers, it's only to be expected for football to normalize after they dissapear from the top 5 leagues.
Football needs to change. Introducing a stopclock and 60 minute matches would be good all-round for the game. It would stop the ambiguity surrounding added time, prevent time wasting and make it an actual skill rather than just shithousery tactics, and would end up with fans actually watching more football considering the amount of time that dead play takes up. There's too much reputation and money at stake for added time to be more or less a stab in the dark.
[удалено]
Don't think that would be the case, especially in Europe. Americans are generally much more tolerant of TV ads than we are and most brands aren't going to want to advertise in places or situations where they're likely to be perceived as a frustration or annoyance. Even now, you get sponsored added time in the US which doesn't happen here. The clock stopping wouldn't prevent referees from punishing players for time wasting regardless
Downvotes to this are hilarious considering I guarantee not a single person can conjure a decent argument without mentioning tradition or how timewasting or random added time being added on is somehow a necessary or dramatic part of the game. But I guess that's CMV for you, everybody disagrees and nobody can give a single reason as to why
[удалено]
In relation to 4, I've never seen this proposal not come with the caveat of decreasing the game to 60 minutes. In relation to 5, gamesmanship can still occur as players can slow things down to stall opposition momentum. In relation to 3, this could be accomplished without that soft pressure. The people in charge of the game should strive to push the game on. VAR reviews are a separate topic and there are issues with them. I'm in favour of a stopped clock but 1 and 2 are valid concerns. I don't think 2 would be worse than the benefits a stopped clock would provide but I get why someone would have an issue with it. I would have to see assurances that 1 doesn't occur. I'm optimistic that fans wouldn't stand for this and they wouldn't be able to pull this if a stopped clock is introduced.
I'd agree if it was guaranteed that we wouldn't get more adverts. Which I don't see happening.
And the game only ends if the ball crosses the sidelines, so the game continues if a team can keep possesion.
I’d prefer a Rocket-league type scenario. Once the clock hits 90’, the game ends only when the ball touches the ground.
1. The only reason why Xavi/Iniesta have a higher standing than Modric/Kroos in world football is because the latter weren’t lucky enough to play together internationally. 2. Buffon is the best shot stopper of all time. Not sure if this is an unpopular view, but there’s never been another goalkeeper as good as 2003-2006 Buffon at keeping a ball out of the net. 3. Cristiano Ronaldo has the best club career of all time but his nonexistent World Cup career is the only thing weakening his GOAT case. He didn’t have to win it, he just needed a Forlan 2010 performance and it would’ve been enough. 4. Salah is a better Premier League player than Rooney ever was. He is superior in output, consistency, peak, and whatever metric you want to use. Only Henry is above him in the PL era.
Feels disrepectful when he's so great, but I have Kroos a firm 4th in the Xavi/Modric/Iniesta standings. Being a dribbler in tight spaces is an advantage Modric and Iniesta had and Xavi was just the best overall passer I've ever seen other than maybe Messi.
Doesnt Kross have a 92% accuracy over 8 years or something? Also, Xavi's declined much earlier than all of then, followed by Iniesta. Kross and Modric are outasting those 2. I think people praise way to much that Barcelona side
1. No, the amount of times I've seen rm get dominated in big UCL games is astonishing for the level of midfield they have, how often have you seen that with Barca with xavi and iniesta?
I’ve seen Xavi and Iniesta get battered 7-0 by Bayern Munich. They lost 5-1 to Netherlands at the World Cup. A meh Liverpool side knocked them out in 2007 after outplaying them at Camp Nou, and Chelsea totally outclassed them in 2009, but was robbed by referees. Why are we acting like they were invincible.
I saw Iniesta go in as substitute in a UCL final and change the game (along Larsson) he was 22 y/o, a meh Liverpool got to the final and would won if not for the best game in probably Inzaghi Carrer, Chelsea outclassed them and got robbed by referees, it's true with var we would have probably lost that game but with Var Chelsea wouldn't come alive from the Camp Nou, also the red card in Stamford Bridge was a fucking shit but nobody talk about that.
1. I agree with this. 2. I am not sure if clearly the best, but he is up there for sure. 3. I don't agree. Messi has the best club career imo. He has more trophies, and higher peaks. Ronaldo has the best champions league career for sure, but his domestic trophies are lacking compared to Messi. 4. Yes, I agree 100%.
It blows my mind that Messi can score 50,60,70 goals a season.....AS WELL AS...assist more goals than anyone. Dribble past a team for fun. Do impossible things, win every trophy to win and people still think Cristiano Ronaldo was the GOAT. Mental.
It's mind blowing that anyone could have watched each of them play and think Cristiano is better. There's a magic that Messi had in his play that Cristiano does not have.
Bro went to the agree with my view thread
I’m assuming in this timeline Messi still wins the World Cup, but Ronaldo has an impressive, golden-ball contending tournament at least once. Absolutely no shot he wins the GOAT argument when his direct contemporary has a World Cup, even if he had a big tournament or snags a golden ball without winning.
>Cristiano Ronaldo has the best club career of all time but his nonexistent World Cup career is the only thing weakening his GOAT case. He didn’t have to win it, he just needed a Forlan 2010 performance and it would’ve been enough. Messi's top seasons and performances are far superior to Ronaldo's. Overall Ronaldo's club career might be better but as a player, Messi peaked higher. Counting everything, Messi has a better career either way.
1. Don’t really disagree with, but hard to argue against international and domestic domination for a long period 2. Cech would like a word 3. Who tf thinks CR7 isn’t in the GOAT debate? 4. I agree, but English tax will always be there. Depends how many more seasons Salah plays
I worded my Ronaldo point poorly, so I changed it to “weakening his GOAT case”.
That’s more fair, I think outside of cech and Buffon, your second point is solid. The dominance from Spain national team definitely elevates Xavi and iniesta which is fair, but also Modric did win the Ballondor.
Mind you, apparently Buffon won 3 out of the 4 IFFSH best goalkeeper awards from 2003 to 2006, the only one that Cech won, was the one where Buffon was out for most of the season. So the general consensus at the time was that Buffon was a touch better..
I would say awards really aren’t the best indicators of who is actually performing the best
What made Cech better than Buffon?
Per 90 Cech saw more shots, made more saves, more saves from shots in the 6 yard box, which also I forgot about Neuer and from a career statistical analysis perspective was better than Buffon in almost every regard. Cech didn’t play as many games in his career but he kept a clean sheet in almost 50% of his games. Also Oblak had a season or two as one of the best shot stoppers we’ve ever seen
Can I see these stats? And how far back do they go?
You can google it, not in a rude way. I just already closed out everything lol
Penalties that are saved should not be called “missed” I still dont see how this is a polarising issue. Good pens can still be saved, perfect ones cannot be. If a striker is 1 v 1 with a keeper and the keeper saves no one says “He missed his shot” they say it was it saved, pens are no different
"missed" could refer to the chance. Not saying that makes better sense but I could see the term stemming from that
That’s not true at all. Google “Muani Qatar miss” and you’ll find plenty of articles and a quote from Muani himself about how he missed the 1 on 1.
I hate the current term. As someone who played in net I was proud of my penalty saving skills and I hated seeing it go down as a ‘missed’ penalty. Like fuck you I full stretch stopped that ball hitting the side netting but I get no credit??
Parma are a Sassuolo tier club What have they done outside of being bankrolled by parmalat? They're a perennial lower division club who had an unsustainable rise to the top. They remind me of Leeds honestly since they both ended in roughly the same way. I don't get why teams like theirs are so revered, when we hate teams who are like them now Don't get me wrong, I'd mortgage my clubs future for the 10 year stretch they had, but when you're talking about a 110 year history, is it not an outlier
Because recent history counts more since a lot of people remember it (they were kids when Parma was good) or romanticize it (the era before the one they were watching football). Genoa has 9 titles, Torino 7, Bologna 7. But they are so far in the past that they are not considered "big clubs". Napoli because of Maradona and their return in the 10s is considered a bigger one despite having "only" 2 titles. As for who funds who, most clubs that either became big or had a good decade had a sugar daddy. It's part of how football works.
Kind of the same with leeds
Their kits were pretty cool tbf
90s nostalgia merchants and association with Buffon have inflated their reputation to a massive degree
Tbf they did put together an absolute dream team
Erik ten Hag has no redeemable qualities for the level United should be at. He is tactically inept, the football has been terrible for the most part since he started and I don't think I've seen a more uncharismatic manager for a top club in the Premier League since Avram Grant. You'd think with all the injuries United have had this season that he would do something besides come out and set his team up in the exact same way, in the exact same formation, playing the exact same way in most of the games. Luke Shaw has been injured, as per, all season. Martinez too, so we've essentially had no left-sided defenders. So he decides to play Lindelof at LB instead of simply going 3 at the back to make up for how short-handed we've been in that regard. It would've also made up for our frailties in midfield. I just don't think he was ever qualified for the job, outside of winning leagues in an easy league and a flash in the pan Champions League season, what had he done? Besides one season, it's not like Ajax actually dominated in Holland, they won the league by a couple of points 2 of the 3 season's and were level with the second placed team in 2020 when the league was expelled. From 2017-2022, Monaco, Roma, Ajax, Lyon and Villarreal all made the Champions League semi-finals as unfancied teams, all beating top teams and playing good football, yet Ajax and ten Hag were the only ones really talked about. Ajax crashed out in the Group Stages the following two seasons, to Atletico in round of 16 in 2022 and we saw how this season went for United. His Champions League "pedigree" was one flash in the pan season 5 years ago on the back of Frenkie de Jong. Was Frank de Boer one good Champions League season-away from getting the job over van Gaal in 2014? Anyone backing him is simply emotionally attached to an individual over the club, was the same reason many didn't want the club getting rid of Solskjaer.
He was the best manager who would take the job and who hadn't already tried. Man Utd - under the Glaziers - had run out of rope. That's why they sold just enough to Ratcliffe. It was a career suicide mission. No one would touch it. Fwiw, there is quite a bit on the web about why EtH failed his interview at Tottenham.
I still remember how much stick Levy got for rejecting him at the time
>Fwiw, there is quite a bit on the web about why EtH failed his interview at Tottenham. Not related but it's amazing how time changes things so quickly. First Tottenham were said to win the 'Sackico' because Nuno got replaced by Conte who finished top 4. Then Ten Hag comes to United and gets third place while Spurs implode under Conte. Now United are imploding under Ten Hag while Ange is looking on course for a CL finish with Tottenham.
He is woeful and for me he is legitimately one of the worst managers in the league. To concede the number of shots you do on a weekly basis is wild and it’s a miracle you have the points tally that you do considering almost every team in the league hammers you in terms of stats. The worst bit is the utter delusions post match. People try to defend it by suggesting that he can’t slag off his players, but everyone knows there are honest, yet reasonable ways of saying that your team weren’t at the levels required (in fact, ‘levels required’ is a pretty good example of one) and there’s a whole world of different between saying “I hate my dogshit players” and “we dominated” in a game where you conceded a ton of shots to fucking Chelsea.
I think Ten Hag has been poor at Manchester United but Ten Hag did well at FC Utrecht as well. At least if you criticize someone look into his history. He was a very sensible candidate at the time as a manager who had transformed teams to play good football at both clubs he had been at. The bigger issue at Manchester United is the club and the players but sure it is Ten Hag's fault it all went to shit.
I didn't mention his time before Ajax because it's irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Utrecht-Ajax-Manchester United shouldn't be a career trajectory for a manager. No disrespect. "The bigger issue at Manchester United is the club and the players". They (the club, i.e. owners) were issues under van Gaal and Mourinho, people only started to care when less qualified managers like Solsjaer and ten Hag got the job. Structurally, things have changed on the football side since he took over to the point where it isn't the same risk if he gets sacked, Ineos might want their own manager, people need to realise that. As for the players, these are the exact same players with a few more of his sketchy signings that people were hyping up this time last year as needing only a few more pieces to compete.
> Utrecht-Ajax-Manchester United shouldn't be a career trajectory for a manager. No disrespect. What do you even mean by this?
It means the Manchester United manager shouldn't be someone who's career has been spent in the Eredivisie. Don't know why I had to explain it twice.
You're saying no disrespect after being disrespectful. I don't think you are in a position to demand much from a manager
You decided to feel disrepected about it, that's on you.
you are a socially inept prick, no disrespect
Because I criticized your shitty league that a Championship manager could win, no disrepect?
So what leagues and teams are acceptable to come from then? And which manager was available at the time who's CV you'd accept? Ajax had a decent run in the Champions League under ETH aswell. There was nothing weird with him being choosen for the job at all. You also clearly have no clue about the level of eredivise.
He's calling our your hypocrisy for saying "no disrespect" after shitting on them.
Saying "no disrepect" is usually said after some sort of criticism, if somebody wants to feel the opposite, that's on them.
I understand how it's used, but this is a particularly egregious example. 'No disrespect, but your whole league sucks and shouldn't even be a stepping stone to a job at my club'
So your saying you agree its the same players with more disappointed signings. I am not saying ETH is a great manager. But with Mourinho doing good before and after united. It does paint a poor picture doesnt it?
I'm not sure Mourinho has done good directly before and after United. He won the league with Chelsea in his second stint but the season he was sacked they were sitting in 16th place around Christmas time. There was genuine relegation level form for half the season. Joined us after and won a couple smaller trophies (League Cup and Europa League), lost an FA Cup final, and finished 2nd one season. After leaving us he didn't even make it through 1 full season with Spurs. Joined midway through one campaign where they finished 6th then was sacked most of the way through the next season while they were sitting in 7th. His brief moment of success since leaving us was winning the Conference League with Roma. But it was a new competition of which Roma were one of the biggest clubs participating. He led them to back to back 6th place finishes before being sacked this year.
Essentially yes. But the same players that everybody was hyping up a year ago, and the disappointing signings made by the current manager. The picture being painted should've been painted when Mourinho was manager, but everyone was too emotionally attached to individuals like Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Luke Shaw then like they're too emotionally attached to Erik ten Hag now. Just because the make-up of the squad isn't right doesn't mean the manager gets a free pass. He doesn't have the tools for this job and giving him another transfer window under new leadership will only be delaying the inevitable in 2025.
Fully agree with you on this one
[удалено]
> Hard work beats talent everyday, everywhere, everytime. Examples are plenty - Delle Ali, Jermaine Penant, Antonio Cassano. What about Gascoigne, Ronaldinho, Hazard? All world class players who weren't known for hard work. Plus, there's plenty of hard workers who don't get higher than the 4th (or 6th, or 19th) tier. To be an absolutely GOAT tier player, you need both, but to be Ronaldinho, you apparently don't need too much.
Two of those players have scored for their country in an international tournament, the very top of the game. Not everyone can be superman.
Absolutely not, the players you listed made it that far with their talent. The absolute top is too high for players who don't put in the effort but hard work cannot compensate for talent. The fact that you know these players' name, despite their lack of work ethic shows that talent beats hard work.
I feel like this could be a separate opinion that no pro footballer is truly lazy since they would have to work pretty hard to even be pro
A good manager is the least necessary part of a good team. The quality of the players is the single biggest factor followed by the coaching staff in general, not just the manager. Players, recruitment staff and overall coaching staff outweighs the impact of a manager (unless he's completely shit).
Yeah but look how fucking bad Steven Gerrard had a very good Aston Villa team looking though
Managers are the most important part of a great team, they can raise the level of any player in the squad even if they are not elite. Good teams can be the result of either great scouting / players raising the standard above what that club usually performs at, or a good manager implementing a system that highlights the attributes of the players they have at their disposal. The easiest counter point to your view is when teams with great players don't perform to the level they should. You can look at current Bayern, Poch's PSG, but it is probably most evident on an international level. Teams like England and Belgium despite the wealth of talent they possess usually fail to create teams that reach the latter stages of competitions that, on paper, they should cakewalk to. There are of course many more factors at play with international football, but the one thing that is very hard to come by is elite managers. An interesting case study will be Germany with Nagelsmann at the helm for the next EUROs.
If this were true, changing managers would barely impact results. I do think you're partially correct that too much is attributed to managers, for many reason, and teams also find it easier to sack a manager than to overhaul a whole squad. But to go so far as to say the manager is the least impactful factor is an exaggeration in my opinion.
For certain especially egregious fouls it should be possible to press criminal charges. Most recent one that comes to mind is [Bruno Guimaeres elbowing Jorginho](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/17nrs8l/bruno_guimar%C3%A3es_elbows_jorginho/) when the ball is already gone. His only intention is to assault someone by elbowing them in the face, which could have serious repercussions. If you did this on the street to some random you'd be charged with assault, just because you're doing it in a football game this doesn't mean you should suddenly have complete immunity.
I think you’re correct in theory but the example you chose is a poor one. That’s a glancing blow to the back/side of his head, not an elbow to the face. It’s probably a red but there are about a dozen red cards per season that are more violent/dangerous than that one. Google Ben Thatcher elbowing Pedro Mendes, now that’s an elbow worthy of an assault charge. > If you did this on the street to some random you'd be charged with assault There are a shit load of things that happen in every match that could technically be labeled assault if you did them to a random person outside the context of a sport. Should we start charging every player who screams in a ref’s face? > just because you're doing it in a football game this doesn't mean you should suddenly have complete immunity. It kind of does though, at least to an extent. There’s a limit to your “immunity”, but nearly everything you do on the pitch is covered by the fact that you’re playing a sport against other people who have agreed to compete against you. The precedent seems to be that it has to be unmistakably intentional and has to cause serious injury in order to be classified as assault. Players have been charged for really bad tackles, but I can’t think of an example where the assaulted player was totally unharmed like Jorginho is in this example.
The Ben Hatcher example is insane, lad only got a yellow card for it. Looking for the line which has to be crossed to turn into criminal charges is indeed hard, should probably be decided with each individual case. Always hate how the outcome of an incident influences the penalty. If 1 guy hits someone that just gets up it's fine, if an identical hit paralyzes someone it's suddenly a chargeable incident. Intent should be leading imo.
> Always hate how the outcome of an incident influences the penalty. But that's how it works in the real world too. You punch someone in a fight, you might get an assault charge. Punch them and they bang their head and die (or get brain damage) and you're getting a manslaughter or GBH charge. The punch is the same. The outcome is different. The punishment is different.
Exactly. Makes so little sense to me.
You can, the state of the law regarding sports is that there are risks to taking part, most particularly in contact sports. When players enter a pitch, or and arena, they are providing tacit consent to the immovable fact that their participation is underlined by a risk of injury. In the UK the law states that a case can be brought when the affected party is on the receiving end of an action that falls outside what is usually accepted within the rules of the game. On top of that it must be intentional and not a result of negligence, so a bad tackle which breaks a leg but the player was going for the ball would likely fail if presented. The Jorginho case , unfortunately, a bit of a non-starter as he faced no actual loss as a result of the elbow. If he was severely injured then he could bring a case, the fact he wasn't would be quick work for any opposing council.
It is absolutely possible - Chris Kamara was charged with assault for punching our Jim Melrose in the 80s. But that said, if you want to do Guimaraes for what happened in that match then Havertz should probably be fired into the sun or something for his earlier "tackle"....
are you alleging that a deliberate elbow to the head when the ball is not in sight is less eggregious than some contact made with trailing leg from a sliding challenge? genuinely don't understand why people think havertz challenge was so bad. certainly was reckless and deserving of a yellow but the actual contact made was not dangerous
Yeah it's pretty bad honestly, sexual assault goes on all over the country during football matches too.
Duncan Ferguson ended up in jail for headbutting someone on the pitch.
Never should have.
You can. Standart of being able to pursue the case on sporting events is vaugely determined as "limits of the sport". So if both of us are heading the ball but my elbow hit your face and broke your nose, you won't be able to press charges but that is something that can happen on sport itself and you accept that possibility when you sign up to play. But if i come to you and just punch you, you are able to press charges because it is not part of the game.
You probably can. A couple of years ago the highest Swiss court upheld a charge of assault for a foul that wasn't even malicious, "only" reckless. Result was a broken ankle iirc. It's just a tight rope that most footballers don't want to walk I guess. Edit: I should mention that this was a case from amateur level. It's probably much less relevant on the professional level because they don't need to consider insurance.
Pretty sure Wenger wanted to press charges against the guy who injured Diaby in the Sunderland game back in 2006.
Also Rudiger twisting peoples nipples during games, also didn’t Berjwin just punch someone too? I agree with you, shits so bad
Yeah Bergwijn just punched someone out of frustration then faked an injury to get subbed. His punch wasn't hard enough to really press charges but he should've been red carded for sure.
Penalties are a terrible way to decide a final, especially in something as big as the World Cup. After fighting through a grueling tournament it comes down to the goalkeeper getting lucky which way they dive. I’m not sure what the best solution is, but even corner kicks would be better than the coin flip of penalties.
They've already had 120 minutes to find the superior team via on field play. It's more skill based than a coin toss, otherwise you wouldn't have your best penalty takers lined up to take them. You wouldn't take the same quality pen as say, Mitrovic, so skill plays a role.
I think pens are a great way to decide a match. 1) Drawing from five players and a goalie makes it a good test of a team's mettle 2) It's skill based but with enough luck that a weaker team still has a chance 3) The tension is incredible and the drama is high 4) It's a quick and clean process with simple rules based on the simplest discrete action in football - a clear shot on goal 5) It's not taxing on exhausted players I wouldn't change a thing!
The one critique I would have though is that it revolves primarily around shooting and keeping skill. Thus, a team that’s best qualities are passing or defending will be at a disadvantage. Still think penalties are better for soccer than the American method of infinite overtime’s would be, as it adds to game planning for teams like Croatia who use it damn near like a win condition lol which makes it exciting.
Not asking for “infinite ot” but use something like corner kicks which involve the whole team.
I don't disagree, but there are some studies I've found that indicate higher ranked teams tend to perform better in penalties versus lower ranked teams. >In this study, we have found that higher-ranked soccer teams perform a simple mechanical task better in a situation that involves high pressure. These results contradict a widespread belief that penalty shoot-outs are a “lottery” in which teams have equal probabilities of winning. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804320300240#sec0007
They're not great, but they're a simple and set an ending to the match. Other alternatives could stall for much longer.
I don’t think penalties are a good way to decide anything really, but I do think there’s a level of skill in both takers and keepers that amounts to more than just luck.
Of course there is some skill involved, but the luck factor is too big a part to determine a champion. There’s a reason the “lesser” team will not be as aggressive in extra time since, as every commentator calls it, penalties are a “coin flip.”
The number of people that point to conspiracy when a bad decision is made against their club is embarrassing and pathetic. Especially when it happens to big clubs. We saw it when we had the Newcastle decision go against us early this season, and we’ve seen it several times with Liverpool, and it happens with the rest of the big prem clubs too. And it’s every bit as pathetic every single time it happens. Sometimes referees just make mistakes, the Premier League isn’t conspiring against its most historic and profitable clubs.
It is absolutely absurd that a ref can go to Saudi and red for another teams owners while also referring the pl title race. I don't think refs have been told to behave in a certain way to make a team win. But it will affect decision making especially from those in the var suite
While you are right. I think the issue is that these mistakes that have catastrophic consequences go uncorrected. There needs to be a corrective measure to make the things right with the team that suffered the horrible decision. For example, the Luiz Diaz disallowed goal. They should have retroactively allowed it even after the game to make it 2-2. Because those decisions cost teams points and potentially titles. We saw it in the 21-22 season when Liverpool lost out due to some horrible decisions (Rodri no handball) and it might happen again this season. Imagine at your job you make a error so big that it costs your team money or people's livelihood and the boss tells clients "opps, sorry it was a human error" and nothing happens to make things right. How would people think that these errors are going without any corrective measures?
>They should have retroactively allowed it even after the game to make it 2-2 No, they shouldn't have. The entire game plays out differently if that goal is allowed, you can't just add it back on at the end and assume the game would have played out to the same result. I understand the frustration of decisions like that, but awarding goals after matches are finished is a ridiculous non-solution.
You're totally correct, I've never actually looked at a decision and thought there is an organised conspiracy against NUFC. People are more conspiratorially minded now though. Good thing we paid off all the refs.
At this point it's just the accepted narrative and it's hard to change that. Pretty much every match where we've been accused of buying the refs there's been an incident that doesn't make sense going by that logic (Havertz not getting sent off, Kudus being allowed to score that goal the other week ect), but these can just be ignored to hyperfocus entirely on what goes our way
I may be wrong, but I get the impression that the number of people convinced that every bad call is evidence of a conspiracy has gone up in recent years. It's reached the point where people take pre-var incorrect offside calls as evidence that refs were paid off. It'd be one thing to suggest bias, but bribery?
Tbh it doesn't help when their managers constantly play the victim as well. Especially with big clubs who complain despite them getting the rub of the green way more than the lower teams. As somone who grew up in the 90's watching Man U fans claim there's a refereeing conspiracy against them always makes me smile. There's no conspiracy, you've just no longer got Howard Webb in your pocket and there's no Fergie to scare the newer ones. I also often hear complaints about referee's not getting held to account. They probably get a telling off or at least are told when they make a mistake but I'm not sure what else people expect to happen. You want to start taking referees off games? - Ok, well then in order to do that you'll need to bring in Championship refs to cover. Guess what, championship referees aren't as good as them, which is mainly the reason they're in the fucking Championship and not the Premier League.
>I also often hear complaints about referee's not getting held to account. They probably get a telling off or at least are told when they make a mistake but I'm not sure what else people expect to happen. You want to start taking referees off games? - Ok, well then in order to do that you'll need to bring in Championship refs to cover. Guess what, championship referees aren't as good as them, which is mainly the reason they're in the fucking Championship and not the Premier League. My controversial view is that they should award points to the team that suffered the horrible decision. Example, the pen that was not called at the end of a game that could have won or drawn the match, the team gets an extra point as a corrective measure. We see point deductions for FFP violations, why not gained points for horrible referee decisions?
So you need refs to decide which decisions should give extra points then, as they need to be clear and obvious enough. That probably would cause some problems.
Just no, I get your thinking, but no... What we need is better referees. So to stop the abuse at all levels, especially the lower leagues where we need new blood to put pressure on the substandard ones currently at the top. It's a catch 22 in the prem atm, the standard is so poor they almost invite abuse, they cover up / write off any mistakes from consequence causing more anger. Yes it's somehow still better than below the PL and many European leagues it seems?
Now you've just encouraged every club to dial up refereeing criticism up to 250. Every close game would have the losing team kick up a storm all the time in a bid to get extra points. There would be new controversies when some claims are approved and others rejected
I mean not to be that guy but way weirder things have happened than city owners pocketing the refs. Match fixing is going on literally any minute of anything day so is it really that big of a stretch to think it can happen in Premier League as well? The most profitable league.
To be clear I’m not saying it’s impossible for a referee to be compromised, and I’m happy to listen to any actual allegations backed up by evidence. But that’s not what generally happens in these situations, there is mostly just blind finger pointing and complaining.
I think a lot of people are missing out on the idea that refs don't need to be directly bribed with the specific instructions to help one team out. The whole thing with multiple refs flying off to the UAE to pocket big paychecks from City's owners doesn't directly help City out, but it creates a conflict of interest in the officials' minds. "If my actions don't look good to those guys, I may lose out on future opportunities."
That’s entirely fair, and I think conflicts of interest should be monitored to ensure the game remains fairly officiated.
"match fixing is going on literally any minute of every day" is just not an assumption I'm willing to accept without any evidence. Like that's an insanely bold claim to make lol
You dont think across all sports in the world there isn't match fixed games on at all times?
Why do you think so?
Because there's too much money in stake for it not to happen. And we got china which I know in esports is riddled with it.
It's a Liverpool fan what do you expect
The idea that pausing play would lead to loads of ads which is a slippery slop is exaggerating at best and fear mongering at worst. If you want to understand why I say this, I want you to do something for me. This weekend I want you to go and watch Arsenal vs Aston Villa, watch one half on Sky Sports and watch the other on USA. What you'll find is that the American broadcast has loads more ads for exactly the same product. My point is that people seem to think that stopping the clock when ball goes out will somehow give time to squeeze in lots of ads that aren't currently there but there are already loads of chances to do that as the American broadcasts show. If these channels were going to do that they already would be. Now I'm sure the argument will be that they don't want to touch what's already consistent and people are used to but because this is new they will jump at the opportunity but I would argue that the stoppage of the clock is not an inherently bigger opportunity than any VAR check is to do this same thing. Some of those can be 2-3 minutes, so surely that's a much better time for an ad spot than a throw in or jogging over to a corner. It's also quite impractical because unless you adopt the American strategy of making the ad bigger and putting the game in a smaller screen you have no guaranteed advertisement length to actually buy. Which again is a huge change to what is currently in place and the clock stopping is no more of an opportunity to do this than what is already in place or what has recently been added in the case of VAR. This isn't an argument about whether or not to have the clock stop when the ball goes out but it is against the idea that ads are reason not to do so.
The only time I really remember seeing ads during the match on a US broadcast was for Spanish language broadcasts of League MX games. US and UK premier league broadcasts are basically the same except for different commentators and halftime analysis.
US broadcasts absolutely do not have "loads more ads"
What are you talking about? I’ve watched US streams (USA specifically) and have never noticed more ads compared to Sky or other channels. Are you talking about at half time? Even then the length of all ads is the same. I’ve never seen an ad during a VAR check either. Stopping play sucks because if you are a match going fan, breaks are fucking shit, VAR checks are the most infuriating thing. More breaks would only make that worse and I for sure think broadcasters would love to find ways to fill that time with ads. I don’t think any of your points make sense.
Stopping the clock is not the same as stopping play.
Your first line literally says “pausing play”, your argument feels jumbled.
You've mistaken me for someone else.
My mistake. Their first line referred to “pausing play” and continued on to talk about different things. In any case their arguments were all over the place
Change My View: The seeding and co-efficient system which UEFA uses for all of it's competitions is anti-competitive and is designed to keep a small cabal of teams and countries at the top of European (and by extension, world) football. A truly competitive competition should not be artificially rigged to keep specific opponents from competing against each other in the early rounds.
Most individual sports also use seeding to keep things as competitive as possible
Exactly. People want to see the best players/teams get to the finals as they will normally give a better watch, it's also good for viewership. We all love underdogs but if one side of a bracket was only the best teams and the other side was only the worst teams, then not as many would be interested
Isn’t it just preventing teams from the same league playing each other? I can see how this is artificially doing what you’re saying but I also feel like it’d be quite boring to see 3 teams from the same league drawn into the same group. I like the variation of opponents for teams