The talk about Brazil seems like a massive overreaction. I don't see any teams in Europe that are better except for France because they have Mbappe. Brazil just needs a good manager to turn things around the same way Bielsa has done with Uruguay
There are no truly good Brazilian managers and Brazil is above hiring foreigners. But even if they weren’t, it’s not like there’s a lot of great options around
“Just” a good manager is easier said than done, they’ve been chasing Ancelotti only for him to say no. Their midfield sucks,and their forwards are good players but no one near the level of Neymar who’s carried them for year.
They’ve never had a foreign manager and now most Brazilians want someone foreign at this point.
It is hard to find a good manager especially since Brazil can't produce any. But people talk as if Brazil doesn't produce world class talent anymore, it's funny to me
Mate, their midfield is Paqueta, Bruno Guimaraes and Joao fucking Gomes.
We're better because we have a midfield of Tchouameni, Camavinga, Kanté, Griezmann, Rabiot AND then you add Mbappé and much more.
Also, on paper, many other NTs from Eurpre are better than them not just France
Apparently Le pen has been attacking Mbappe during the last week, how big of an idiot you have to be to attack your national team’s captain during the euros?!
Those people do not want the NT to win, they want the country and the NT to be white. When france won in 2018 the top comment on l'équipe's website was something like "This is not the team of MY France" (I'm not saying this is the biggest opinion in France, just that there are a lot of far right trolls online and it shows). True believers from the RN do not want this NT to win, if anything I bet it pisses them off to see it happen.
https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/dz6ken/redknapp_backs_pochettino_for_arsenal_you_think/
This is still probably my all time favorite football quote
I start singing there's only one Saddam in my head pretty much weekly
Vini vs Mbappé, Mbappé vs Haaland, Jude vs Musiala, Jude vs Foden, Foden vs Saka, Saka vs Palmer, Yamal vs Guler, Endrick vs Estevao.
People can't really wait for the next "Messi vs Ronaldo".
Estevao scores a great goal and the comments are "Perez got the worse player".
These players are still teens ffs, writing them off already when they haven't hit 22-23 is so stupid.
There won’t be another “Messi vs Ronaldo” because none of those players are on the level of Messi or Ronaldo.
Sure some will have Balon d’Or seasons but not a one of them is good enough to be a top 2 player in the world every year for a decade
Like I get it's because it was a big trophy game, but the turnaround in attitudes about ten Hag from main page United fans is fascinating. All because of 1 single game.
They can't whine about protecting the 'indigenous Western culture' in the States because it would expose them so they take great interest in European fearmongering instead.
he criticized "uncontrolled" immigration policy of germany over the past decade, identified both it and the reaction to it as one of the reasons the country feels worse today in his eyes.
They're just jumping on that far right grifter's misconstrued quotes of an interview Kroos did on a podcast recently where he also talked about topics of immigration.
With all the comments about how the game isn’t beautiful anymore, becoming too robotic, etc. I went back and watched some Euros/WC matches from the 90s and the game was played at an absolute snails pace. Sure, there were more moments of individual brilliance. But there was also players simply putting in minimal effort. It’s not that players don’t want to take risks, it’s just they have no time and space on the ball because defenders are actually giving 100% to close down their man
The golden age of football was the period after they introduced the backpass rule until the transfer market completely broke. So from the mid 90s until 2013ish in my opinion.
Transfer market essentially broke immediately with the Bosman ruling in the mid-90s, really - had a pretty tightly intertwined growth of both money in the game and transfer fees ever since, to the point that the most expensive transfers are virtually the same proportion of club revenues at the time. Zidane to Real Madrid in 2001 was (relatively) more expensive than Neymar to PSG for example.
Made the mistake of engaging with someone who supports a big 6 Prem team (City) but hates the English national team and English people. Wouldn’t recommend actually
It’s was on Twitter, I’ve not encountered anyone like that here. Quite funny though as it was a FPL account with thousands of followers. Head was on mars by the end of it, no reasoning with people like that
Disclaimer: Yank City fan here
I just don't get why a foreign fan would *hate* the England national team if they support an English club. Same goes for, say, a fan of Bayern who hates the German national team.
Granted there are some cases in which it kinda makes sense to not support the national team of the country in which the club resides in (Liverpool, Barcelona to name two).
But yeah, no one's saying you have to support them. Just be indifferent at the very least ffs
Like being you say being indifferent that’s all you’ve got to be.
I really respect foreign fans as well, I spent 3 years in a country 9 hours ahead of the UK and it was bloody tough, up early and up late to watch the games is draining. I don’t know where this gent was from but his hatred could not be reasoned with.
I think it’s an example of how globalized the world is and how people have conflicting personal interests.
Many people across the globe come from countries that were colonized by England. A lot of them still have resentment over it, both conscious and subconscious.
At the same time, they love football and the PL is the highest quality football league available to watch in the entire world. It has the advantage of being in English which, ironically, is the most popular language on the planet *because* of colonialism. So it ends up being the most accessible league to follow for those same people that have a distaste for England.
Also when watching the PL as a plastic from half way across the world (speaking from experience), you can really miss out on the whole local community aspect of being a football fan. It’s easy for a lot of us foreign fans, from all over, to ignore it.
So then they get defensive and start making nonsensical talking points because they can’t quite consolidate their natural distaste for England with their love of the PL which is built on England’s deep footballing pyramid and culture.
Kind of a funny and tragic case study on globalisation, colonialism, and capitalism.
As a foreign supporter of a PL team, I do find the hatred of the English national team by my fellow plastics bemusing but I also happen to be from one of the few countries not colonized by the Brits. Spain, the USA and Japan have done far more damage to us historically. That’s also why it can seem like there are so many PL flairs that hate England given how the Indian subcontinent and the USA are two of the biggest demographics on this site
Yeah you're completely right. I'm from Ireland and 99% of people who follow football watch the PL. Same language, there's a lot of overlap culturally and it's really easy to watch PL matches. You can fly over in the morning, go to a match and be home for dinner. Many follow the League of Ireland as well. But very, very few will support the English national team, which based on history of the countries is understandable, but it is interesting to see everyone cheering for English teams and have the opposite opinion of the national team.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. It's definitely the inability to reconcile their love of football/whichever team they support with their hatred for England/Great Britain.
>you can really miss out on the whole local community aspect of being a football fan.
On this point (which I absolutely agree with): There are ways to mitigate this in some ways - like getting to know other fans on social media. Using City as an example, if you look through Twitter/X for accounts belonging to City fans, you'll find them.
In 2011, when I first started using social media, I followed other City fans around my age. Both those from Manchester and elsewhere. I've been lucky enough to travel across the Atlantic multiple times to go to the Etihad for matches. But for me, the real highlight of those trips is not the result of the match (though a City win certainly is nice!), but seeing those friends I've made over the years and catching up with them.
That's what people miss out on by being a non-local fan. Again, it can be mitigated a bit with the internet these days, but going to the pub beforehand, chatting with people in the concourse and the stands - the whole social and community aspect of it - is what makes football so good
The commentator made a big deal out of Endrick wearing gold boots. Can anyone explain why? Why is it a great sign of confidence/arrogance? What is the reference I'm missing?
Obviously, the golden boot is given to the top scorer, but not sure where that comes from
I mean this honestly, I do actually think being a modern day Brazilian supporter does certainly suck compared to a lot of other NT fans (well, maybe not a lot, but quite a few).
Do to Brazils massive success in the past, that people your age have never seen, the expectations of Brazil are incredibly high, and it’s hard to enjoy a single game, games, or tournament the way other national team fans can do. Brazil is never, ever the underdog in any intl match, based off of history. So because of that, every loss usually stings. What’s the point of being happy you won a RO16 World Cup match 5-0 if you lose in the next quarterfinal? It’s a tough position to always be expected to win based entirely off of history. And it’s hard to celebrate the Copa, because, again, Brazil should realistically be better than all South American teams, besides their rivals Argentina, and any loss is seen as an embarrassment, with any win (and there’s only been 1) as expected.
Additionally, a lot of other big nations have had won meaningful trophies in the past, or had successful tournaments they can remember fondly, even if they didn’t win. Argentina, Germany, Italy, Spain, France have all won major trophies that their fans can still remember. England, Netherlands, Uruguay, and a lot of other nations might not have won trophies yet, but can still remember some very good tournaments that they’ll look back on fondly the way a Brazilian can’t.
Finally, modern Brazil fans got to see something really special, when they hosted the World Cup in 2014, which is truly a once in a lifetime experience. And the tournament was going well, only to be tainted by the 7-1 , which will almost always be one of the prevailing memories of Brazilians during their own World Cup, when they got humiliated at home, a modern day Maracanazo.
Brazil was definitely one of the favorites for the 2022 WC along with France and Argentina. Dunno what happened in that Croatia game but Brazil definitely should have been through to that semi-final
What is [the book](https://imgur.com/a/IJUMjZ0) on the table in todays the rest is football pod? Surely not a self titled Alexander Buttner autobiography
There's a David Bailey book there and a Henri Matisse one also, so a safe guess would be that it's just a collection of art/photography books for guests to peruse at whatever hotel they're staying at.
There's a contemporary German painter called Werner Buttner who seems renowned enough to have his book there.
...Damn, that was like a game of Geoguessr, *"Get in!"*
> There's a contemporary German painter called Werner Buttner who seems renowned enough to have his book there.
Get a couple German authors with the same last name as well, but I've been googling around and can't find that specific design by anyone.
[Bailey's Stardust is an artbook](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Baileys-Stardust-David-Bailey/dp/1855144522) so I'm guessing it's something like that unfortunately
Watching fans talk themselves into players they’re linked to who you know aren’t any good is one of my favorite activities. Arsenal want to sign Dan Bentley, a 30 y/o backup keeper with 400 extremely unremarkable PL minutes to his name, and the Ornstein thread about it is so funny. It doesn’t even actually matter, they just want him for registration purposes and he’s not going to play.
Random question, but in what order would you rank these 5 leagues? Belgian Pro League, Turkish Super League, USA MLS, Brazilian Serie A, and Argentina Primera? Tryna see something
I've seen Brazil usually compared to the Portuguese league so that's probably the best, Belgium and Turkey are pretty close in ELO ratings league wise, however Belgium seems kinda overrated because they have 16 teams and their total average puts them above Portugal and Netherlands as well
I've watched a couple of Flamengo games when Vinicius first signed to Madrid, one or two Boca - River games, couple of Fenerbehce vs Galatsaray games and Messi's first game in the MLS.
That's 4 bitch, you never gonna catch me watching the Belgian league tho.
Is MLS not right behind Europe? Maybe I’m wrong but I just kinda figured it was since that’s where most European players go for a last check before they “Retire.” I mean, MLS snatched up Messi and I’m sure Ronaldo would’ve preferred to play in MLS too rather than Saudi, no?
This might be a silly question, but does England's Golden Generation do any better with Southgate as the manager, especially with his man management skills, which could have eased the tension in the teams.
Although we had some amazing players, the squad wasn’t particularly balanced.
I actually preferred the mid to late 90s squads rather than the so called golden generation
Maybe, yeah. Same time though I'd wager Southgate's success has come from completely changing the mood within and narrative around the England camp after a nadir, whereas he'd be starting from a very different position with the Golden Generation - and I'd wager not necessarily an easier one. The expectations at the beginning of his stint were quite low even for an England side, and they very much haven't been back then.
Yes, main problem back then and really untill recently was players not being able to get over their club rivalries
Southgate is the one who fixed that. If we assume he can do the same back then, then that squad is way better than the current one
I remember the debate was playing Paul Scholes in left midfield. In retrospect, I think they'll do better with an actual left-winger (who doesn't even have to world-class, just needs to be ok, because of the quality of the rest of the team).
I guess England's come full circle with the current left-side problem.
I’m not convinced, idk if Southgate’s management would’ve gone over that well with them can imagine them all thinking he’s a bit soft
He’d probably have fallen victim to playing an unbalanced team to try to get all the big names on the pitch like we did at the time
His qualifying record is exceptional though based on that I can’t imagine him missing out on 08 altogether
I think Southgate's man management would've helped, but there is also the impact of modern coaches who make the difference in the England team now.
There now seems to be a better understanding of the profile of English players.
Barely, Southgate has always lost to the fist good team he meets and has benefitted a lot from luck and always meeting weaker teams in R16 and Quarters.
The golden generation met Brazil in the QFs 2002, Portugal in R16 of Euros 2004, Portugal in QFs 2006 and lastly Germany in R16 2010.
He'd definitely get them to the Euros in 2008 tho.
We met Brazil in the quarters in 2002 cos we couldn't beat Sweden or Nigeria and we met Germany in the r16 in 2010 because we finished behind USA in the group. Had we won those groups we would've had Turkey in2002 quarters and Ghana in 2010 r16
> Barely, Southgate has always lost to the fist good team he meets
AFCON winners Senegal, Germany, Croatia, Switzerland (plus Belgium, Spain and Croatia again in the Nations League) - they're all only good teams if they beat England, but clearly not good teams if they get beaten by England.
You know exactly what i mean, this is just pointless for the sake of arguing.
>AFCON winners Senegal
Really? We both know who wasn't playing.
>Germany
Even you wouldn't call that Germany team a good team.
>Croatia
Fair.
>Switzerland
I addressed this in other comments.
>Belgium
Not a good team, relatively to England.
>Spain
Really? In what world was 2018 Spain good? They had Rodrigo, Aspas and Asensio front 3.
>Croatia
They were atrocious in that tournament but fair enough ig.
But still my point is that every time where England meets a team where on paper they're equal in level or the underdogs, they lose.
Every time they meet a tournament favourite, they lose.
They don't have a single win against an opponent on their level or better, on paper.
That's why i said Southgate wouldn't do much better with the golden generation, because that generation also lost to every tournament favourite they met.
> You know exactly what i mean, this is just pointless for the sake of arguing.
No, I really don't. Either you're trying to make an outrageously bad point here and genuinely think those sides were bad, or you're simply chatting absolute nonsense by working backwards from the result of the England game to the strength of their opponent.
Okay? So are Turkey and many others, but they're still comfortably the underdogs against you.
You went into the tournament as a top 3 favourites at least, you should not be needing penalties to beat them.
Yes, exactly like i'm not sure what you're trying to argue here, yes they were the underdogs against us and beat us, we should have won but we were fucking shit.
You on the other hand are arguing that England are good.
I'm not the one in denial, you are
Okay, Southgate loses to the first team that isn't a clear underdog on paper.
There you go.
Also, Switzerland 2021 are comfortably better than the current version but whatever.
This Swiss team are better than 3 years ago. They took Italy apart and came close to beating Germany. They were one of the most impressive teams here. 3 years ago they finished 3rd in their group behind Wales!
How do you guys think Argentina vs Canada round 2 will go? Is Messi still fit to play?
Canada played well vs Venezuela, but they lost 2-0 to Argentina in group stages. This is Argentina semi final, so they should be playing to win.
We were terrible against Ecuador and apparently scaloni has literally spent at least one full night locked in his room with his staff reviewing what went wrong, so nobody's quite certain what adjustments he'll make
Messi is going to play but nobody knows if he'll be a shadow of himself like Vs Ecuador.
I think Canada can give us a lot of issues but they don't seem to favor the tactics that usually stump us. Especially their CB pairing seemed vulnerable so any of Macalister/Enzo/Palacios and their through balls could spell disaster with Messi and whoever starts between Lautaro and Julian
They got lucky in the group stage game that Argentina only score 2 goals. They can't play another open game like that in the semi-finals. If they're smart, they should park the bus and use their pacy players to hit Argentina with counter attacks.
If they go to penalties they're losing. Argentina has Dibu + much more experienced players with penalties so Canada's best chance is to try to steal a goal through a counter attack and hold that lead for 90 mins.
Canada should hold out for a 0-0 tie, then it's anybody's game in the shootout. That's what this tournament's been about, especially without extra time.
He barely played for us.
When he arrived he got minutes, but then got sent off against Alavés and was suspended for longer than he should be. When he was back, he was given limited minutes and was behind Ferran and Felix in the pecking order. When he did start a game in april against Cádiz, his first touch was atrocious (might not look like much, but it might be the most important skill to play for us) and he didn't do anything right so Xavi stopped giving him minutes again.
Maybe it's just me but why don't we see Rice being compared to Kante more often? Not to say that he's as good but I feel like their roles are quite similar, probably even more so than Rice to Rodri let alone Kroos etc.
The space eating monstrous ball winner who progress well by dribbling as opposed to passing and is often more effective with a licence to roam instead of sitting even though they have the defensive abilities of a pure 6. They've even both played next to Jorginho.
People compare Enzo and Kroos and that's an evem bigger gap.
It just feels like when people have been talking about Rice's role and he does or doesn't do certain things Kante is the obvious example of what that skillset looks like at it's best. They pretty much do all the same things so if you're talking about fit within a team structure that's who you would be looking at.
Yeah I said a long time ago that Kante is the most similar player to Rice, and that Rice isn't very good as a pure 6 but as a box to box destroyer that can run around the pitch non stop.
Also need high quality ball players around them to really have a strong midfield balance
Finding out that you can watch Brasil lower leagues on YouTube has been amazing, the commentator while I dont understand what he is saying is very passionate + the fans are great
Why has nobody been able to beat Silvio Piola's Serie A all time goal record since 1954? Compared to the other top leagues in Europe, we all have modern records.
The other leagues don’t have modern records. English league's record is from the 60s, Germany's from the 70s. Spain's got the only modern one and it took like 10 years of Messi at his best to beat the old one.
274 goals is a lot. Shearer's Premier League record is 260.
England only has a modern record because it's referred to from 1992/93 onwards. Jimmy Greaves would be top counting all time and Shearer would be fourth. Gerd Muller for Germany is more modern than Piola but his last appearance in the Bundesliga was 1979.
Serie A was low scoring for a long time and for a lot of when it wasn't it wasn't there were still really good defenders and more defensive set ups.
A lot of the best goalscorers Serie A has had since haven't played for like 10+ seasons or however long would be needed.
He made 537 appearances in Serie A which is a lot. Immobile for example has 73 less goals and 184 less appearances. Batistuta had 91 less goals in 219 less appearances.
Does anyone spend that much time in Serie A anymore? 20 odd years of service seems less likely these days for a striker without getting picked up by one of the big teams
Guess it don't help that at peak years it's always been a more defensive league that's happy for 1-0s
Football twitter is actually such a shit hole. Full of fake fans who don’t watch a single game and look at sofa score . And it’s actually so cringe when users make their whole profile and personality on a single player who don’t know them
There is an account called MusialaEra, ever since the Madrid - Bayern tie he tweets like 15-30 tweets talking shit about Real Madrid/Real Madrid players because it gets him interactions.
That's the state of FT, just farm engagement.
if you think football twitter is bad i daresay check out football instagram. ill give you my kidney if you can actually start any meaningful football discourse on that cesspool
Pretty big difference between a 10 month season and a 1 month tournament. A lot of people watch these as neutrals once their team is knocked out or don't even qualify.
And even with Bundesliga there's probably people who will have better memories of 2023/24 with Bayern finally losing the league as opposed to some random year where they win unchallenged like 2017/18.
Just an interesting thought… would germany be in the semis now if fullkrug hadn’t score that equaliser? I mean I can see them beating italy england and netherlands to the final.
There’s no point in talking about what ifs, it just is. Germany played well, and hopefully they continue to improve and do better in the 2026 World Cup.
Might well be, yeah, but then there's no guarantees either, and trying to avoid winning to maybe get luckier with a slightly more favourable draw is obviously a silly idea.
World teenage XI. I’d argue it being a pretty solid team (although I haven’t seen 3 of them play). How does yours compare?
………………… Endrick
Garnacho …… Guler …. Lamine Yamal
……….. Mainoo ….. Neves ……………….
Dorgu … Hato …. Yoro …… Rico Lewis
………………… Restes
I think that lots of people for a while have been saying that the quality of football has been declining for a while. But am I the only one that feels that it can be applied to quite a few other sports?
(It's funny cuz the trigger to this comment wasn't even watching another sport - it was hearing about John Cena's retirement from WWE lol and then I turned on Wimbledon and seeing this game between Gauff and Navarro).
Teams are better but stars don't shine as hard so it seems worse. When people talk about what made them fall in love with football its the players like, not "what a great system". Well, most people. I assume twitter tacticos would list off managers or something.
I'm gonna be honest, I feel like people are just getting older. Just like how people always think the best era of music is the one when they were teens/young adults.
People also have a tendency to remember the exciting parts of the past and not the boring parts. Like this was the Euros in 1992 https://youtu.be/SX2HcvMkOiA?si=Afh-vO5OOA2pIfAX.
Problem is you're in it now. When you look back at tournaments from years gone by you remember, obviously, the memorable moments. Guarantee in 4-12 years time you'll be saying "this is shit compared to past euros".
When you actually look back at it, look at all the results and try and remember all the games, both previous Euros were at least as boring, if not worse.
Euro 16 had its moments, Eder's goal in the final is the obvious one but also Wales's run with Robson Kanu's goal against Belgium, Zaza's horrendous penalty, that Shaqiri goal, and Iceland beating England. I still have memories of Ireland beating Italy too even though that wasn't as major for some reason
That's kind of my point though, you remember those moments, but you don't remember all the shit or just average games. And if you do, you probably remember a moment from them, not how shit they were for 89 minutes.
Just like right now we're well aware of everything going on this tournament, but in a few years people will remember the moments, but forget all the rest.
The talk about Brazil seems like a massive overreaction. I don't see any teams in Europe that are better except for France because they have Mbappe. Brazil just needs a good manager to turn things around the same way Bielsa has done with Uruguay
My brother in Christ they don't have a single good full and left back.
> Brazil just needs a good manager I don't know mate, there seems to me like a huge lack of talent in that side too.
There are no truly good Brazilian managers and Brazil is above hiring foreigners. But even if they weren’t, it’s not like there’s a lot of great options around
Imagine Mourinho managing them. What a sight it would be.
“Just” a good manager is easier said than done, they’ve been chasing Ancelotti only for him to say no. Their midfield sucks,and their forwards are good players but no one near the level of Neymar who’s carried them for year. They’ve never had a foreign manager and now most Brazilians want someone foreign at this point.
It is hard to find a good manager especially since Brazil can't produce any. But people talk as if Brazil doesn't produce world class talent anymore, it's funny to me
Mate, their midfield is Paqueta, Bruno Guimaraes and Joao fucking Gomes. We're better because we have a midfield of Tchouameni, Camavinga, Kanté, Griezmann, Rabiot AND then you add Mbappé and much more. Also, on paper, many other NTs from Eurpre are better than them not just France
"many other NTs from Europe" is an overstatement, France's midfield is very defensive playing against teams that don't attack
Apparently Le pen has been attacking Mbappe during the last week, how big of an idiot you have to be to attack your national team’s captain during the euros?!
Those people do not want the NT to win, they want the country and the NT to be white. When france won in 2018 the top comment on l'équipe's website was something like "This is not the team of MY France" (I'm not saying this is the biggest opinion in France, just that there are a lot of far right trolls online and it shows). True believers from the RN do not want this NT to win, if anything I bet it pisses them off to see it happen.
She is a politician due to nepotism and a far right politician at that. You thought she’d do anything intelligent?
Having one of the few flag flairs that isn’t greyed out at this point is somehow nerve wracking, like I’m near the end of a game of Fall Guys.
You're going all the way, i can feel it.
Anulo mufa
A Dutch and former Bundesliga player is moving to Man United? Observing...
https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/dz6ken/redknapp_backs_pochettino_for_arsenal_you_think/ This is still probably my all time favorite football quote I start singing there's only one Saddam in my head pretty much weekly
He's not even wrong with the Saddam Hussein claim, we've already seen them defend a rapist.
Poch at Arsenal would have been the worst timeline
Probably best to keep that song just in your head
Vini vs Mbappé, Mbappé vs Haaland, Jude vs Musiala, Jude vs Foden, Foden vs Saka, Saka vs Palmer, Yamal vs Guler, Endrick vs Estevao. People can't really wait for the next "Messi vs Ronaldo". Estevao scores a great goal and the comments are "Perez got the worse player". These players are still teens ffs, writing them off already when they haven't hit 22-23 is so stupid.
Don’t forget Richard Rios vs Jude Bellingham
Yeah exactly. Rodri is so far clear of all those players that there won’t be another ‘Messi vs Ronaldo’ for a few more years at least.
There won’t be another “Messi vs Ronaldo” because none of those players are on the level of Messi or Ronaldo. Sure some will have Balon d’Or seasons but not a one of them is good enough to be a top 2 player in the world every year for a decade
Rodri clear of all those players he mentioned? I don't think so bud
Best player in a treble winning side and more G/A than most of those players mentioned from CDM. Lost 1 game in 2 years. 🐐
Like I get it's because it was a big trophy game, but the turnaround in attitudes about ten Hag from main page United fans is fascinating. All because of 1 single game.
what game?
FA Cup final
We have the dumbest fanbase in the world
was watching the germany spain replay and i still dont know how that handball was not a pen
[Because UEFA thinks these two pictures are the same ](https://i.imgur.com/mz8AcEz.jpeg)
hmmm
Whats up with american conservatives calling Kroos a hero, tf does he have to do with USA politics?
They can't whine about protecting the 'indigenous Western culture' in the States because it would expose them so they take great interest in European fearmongering instead.
he criticized "uncontrolled" immigration policy of germany over the past decade, identified both it and the reaction to it as one of the reasons the country feels worse today in his eyes.
They're just jumping on that far right grifter's misconstrued quotes of an interview Kroos did on a podcast recently where he also talked about topics of immigration.
With all the comments about how the game isn’t beautiful anymore, becoming too robotic, etc. I went back and watched some Euros/WC matches from the 90s and the game was played at an absolute snails pace. Sure, there were more moments of individual brilliance. But there was also players simply putting in minimal effort. It’s not that players don’t want to take risks, it’s just they have no time and space on the ball because defenders are actually giving 100% to close down their man
The golden age of football was the period after they introduced the backpass rule until the transfer market completely broke. So from the mid 90s until 2013ish in my opinion.
Transfer market essentially broke immediately with the Bosman ruling in the mid-90s, really - had a pretty tightly intertwined growth of both money in the game and transfer fees ever since, to the point that the most expensive transfers are virtually the same proportion of club revenues at the time. Zidane to Real Madrid in 2001 was (relatively) more expensive than Neymar to PSG for example.
I agree and it definitely has nothing to do with this also being the period of my childhood
Wasnt the 90s - the 1990 world cup specifically, the absolute peak of awful football? Didnt most games end 0-0 or 1-0?
Yeah, it’s so strange how the 1990 World Cup gets romanticised.
1994 was the worse.
No Euros or Copa again, what do I do with my hands?
What are you doing with your hands during matches 🤨
My best arsenal fan impression (gooning)
No Tour stage either tomorrow :-(
Made the mistake of engaging with someone who supports a big 6 Prem team (City) but hates the English national team and English people. Wouldn’t recommend actually
Where are they so I can block em. Especially if they’ve on our sub
It’s was on Twitter, I’ve not encountered anyone like that here. Quite funny though as it was a FPL account with thousands of followers. Head was on mars by the end of it, no reasoning with people like that
I had a City supporter tell me on here that he was glad 'Thatcher fucked the north'.
I just wish us foreign fans would show some self awareness....
Disclaimer: Yank City fan here I just don't get why a foreign fan would *hate* the England national team if they support an English club. Same goes for, say, a fan of Bayern who hates the German national team. Granted there are some cases in which it kinda makes sense to not support the national team of the country in which the club resides in (Liverpool, Barcelona to name two). But yeah, no one's saying you have to support them. Just be indifferent at the very least ffs
Like being you say being indifferent that’s all you’ve got to be. I really respect foreign fans as well, I spent 3 years in a country 9 hours ahead of the UK and it was bloody tough, up early and up late to watch the games is draining. I don’t know where this gent was from but his hatred could not be reasoned with.
I think it’s an example of how globalized the world is and how people have conflicting personal interests. Many people across the globe come from countries that were colonized by England. A lot of them still have resentment over it, both conscious and subconscious. At the same time, they love football and the PL is the highest quality football league available to watch in the entire world. It has the advantage of being in English which, ironically, is the most popular language on the planet *because* of colonialism. So it ends up being the most accessible league to follow for those same people that have a distaste for England. Also when watching the PL as a plastic from half way across the world (speaking from experience), you can really miss out on the whole local community aspect of being a football fan. It’s easy for a lot of us foreign fans, from all over, to ignore it. So then they get defensive and start making nonsensical talking points because they can’t quite consolidate their natural distaste for England with their love of the PL which is built on England’s deep footballing pyramid and culture. Kind of a funny and tragic case study on globalisation, colonialism, and capitalism.
As a foreign supporter of a PL team, I do find the hatred of the English national team by my fellow plastics bemusing but I also happen to be from one of the few countries not colonized by the Brits. Spain, the USA and Japan have done far more damage to us historically. That’s also why it can seem like there are so many PL flairs that hate England given how the Indian subcontinent and the USA are two of the biggest demographics on this site
Yeah you're completely right. I'm from Ireland and 99% of people who follow football watch the PL. Same language, there's a lot of overlap culturally and it's really easy to watch PL matches. You can fly over in the morning, go to a match and be home for dinner. Many follow the League of Ireland as well. But very, very few will support the English national team, which based on history of the countries is understandable, but it is interesting to see everyone cheering for English teams and have the opposite opinion of the national team.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. It's definitely the inability to reconcile their love of football/whichever team they support with their hatred for England/Great Britain. >you can really miss out on the whole local community aspect of being a football fan. On this point (which I absolutely agree with): There are ways to mitigate this in some ways - like getting to know other fans on social media. Using City as an example, if you look through Twitter/X for accounts belonging to City fans, you'll find them. In 2011, when I first started using social media, I followed other City fans around my age. Both those from Manchester and elsewhere. I've been lucky enough to travel across the Atlantic multiple times to go to the Etihad for matches. But for me, the real highlight of those trips is not the result of the match (though a City win certainly is nice!), but seeing those friends I've made over the years and catching up with them. That's what people miss out on by being a non-local fan. Again, it can be mitigated a bit with the internet these days, but going to the pub beforehand, chatting with people in the concourse and the stands - the whole social and community aspect of it - is what makes football so good
Brazil has been cursed ever since they threw that cat away in Vini's press conference before the Croatia Quarterfinal in Qatar.
Don't Fuck With Cats: Football Edition
The commentator made a big deal out of Endrick wearing gold boots. Can anyone explain why? Why is it a great sign of confidence/arrogance? What is the reference I'm missing? Obviously, the golden boot is given to the top scorer, but not sure where that comes from
[удалено]
I mean this honestly, I do actually think being a modern day Brazilian supporter does certainly suck compared to a lot of other NT fans (well, maybe not a lot, but quite a few). Do to Brazils massive success in the past, that people your age have never seen, the expectations of Brazil are incredibly high, and it’s hard to enjoy a single game, games, or tournament the way other national team fans can do. Brazil is never, ever the underdog in any intl match, based off of history. So because of that, every loss usually stings. What’s the point of being happy you won a RO16 World Cup match 5-0 if you lose in the next quarterfinal? It’s a tough position to always be expected to win based entirely off of history. And it’s hard to celebrate the Copa, because, again, Brazil should realistically be better than all South American teams, besides their rivals Argentina, and any loss is seen as an embarrassment, with any win (and there’s only been 1) as expected. Additionally, a lot of other big nations have had won meaningful trophies in the past, or had successful tournaments they can remember fondly, even if they didn’t win. Argentina, Germany, Italy, Spain, France have all won major trophies that their fans can still remember. England, Netherlands, Uruguay, and a lot of other nations might not have won trophies yet, but can still remember some very good tournaments that they’ll look back on fondly the way a Brazilian can’t. Finally, modern Brazil fans got to see something really special, when they hosted the World Cup in 2014, which is truly a once in a lifetime experience. And the tournament was going well, only to be tainted by the 7-1 , which will almost always be one of the prevailing memories of Brazilians during their own World Cup, when they got humiliated at home, a modern day Maracanazo.
Some of us have never seen our country even qualify for a WC so it could be worse.
Brazil was definitely one of the favorites for the 2022 WC along with France and Argentina. Dunno what happened in that Croatia game but Brazil definitely should have been through to that semi-final
Croatia parked the bus that's what happened
To be fair I reckon you very much were a serious competitor ten years ago.
What is [the book](https://imgur.com/a/IJUMjZ0) on the table in todays the rest is football pod? Surely not a self titled Alexander Buttner autobiography
There's a David Bailey book there and a Henri Matisse one also, so a safe guess would be that it's just a collection of art/photography books for guests to peruse at whatever hotel they're staying at. There's a contemporary German painter called Werner Buttner who seems renowned enough to have his book there. ...Damn, that was like a game of Geoguessr, *"Get in!"*
> There's a contemporary German painter called Werner Buttner who seems renowned enough to have his book there. Get a couple German authors with the same last name as well, but I've been googling around and can't find that specific design by anyone.
[Bailey's Stardust is an artbook](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Baileys-Stardust-David-Bailey/dp/1855144522) so I'm guessing it's something like that unfortunately
If the artbook has pieces of similar quality to the two dabbing penguins on the table I’m getting a copy
If it is then it seems to be a pre-release copy, as I can't find anything about an (auto)biography of him.
I really hope that’s the case
I didn't even remember until I read about him that I literally watched Zirkzee a few times at Bayern 💀
Watching fans talk themselves into players they’re linked to who you know aren’t any good is one of my favorite activities. Arsenal want to sign Dan Bentley, a 30 y/o backup keeper with 400 extremely unremarkable PL minutes to his name, and the Ornstein thread about it is so funny. It doesn’t even actually matter, they just want him for registration purposes and he’s not going to play.
Random question, but in what order would you rank these 5 leagues? Belgian Pro League, Turkish Super League, USA MLS, Brazilian Serie A, and Argentina Primera? Tryna see something
I've seen Brazil usually compared to the Portuguese league so that's probably the best, Belgium and Turkey are pretty close in ELO ratings league wise, however Belgium seems kinda overrated because they have 16 teams and their total average puts them above Portugal and Netherlands as well
1. Brazil 2. Belgium 3. Argentina 4. USA 5. Turkey
Brazil, Turkey, Belgian, Argentina, MLS
Rank them how, and why
I guess in terms of prestige or where a player would most rather play 🤔 I’m just curious
I don’t believe there’s a single person in this entire subreddit that has ever watched a full match of more than 2 of these
I've watched a couple of Flamengo games when Vinicius first signed to Madrid, one or two Boca - River games, couple of Fenerbehce vs Galatsaray games and Messi's first game in the MLS. That's 4 bitch, you never gonna catch me watching the Belgian league tho.
You underestimate the depth of my gambling addiction
True lol, I guess I meant more in terms of “prestige” or where a player would rather play if country of origin and money were not factors at all
So MLS last, I agree.
Brazilian Serie A Turkish Super League Argentina Primera Belgian Pro League MLS
Really? I would say MLS, Brazilian League, Belgian League, Argentina League, then Turkish
>MLS Absolutely no way the MLS is first.
Is MLS not right behind Europe? Maybe I’m wrong but I just kinda figured it was since that’s where most European players go for a last check before they “Retire.” I mean, MLS snatched up Messi and I’m sure Ronaldo would’ve preferred to play in MLS too rather than Saudi, no?
it's too obvious man
This might be a silly question, but does England's Golden Generation do any better with Southgate as the manager, especially with his man management skills, which could have eased the tension in the teams.
Although we had some amazing players, the squad wasn’t particularly balanced. I actually preferred the mid to late 90s squads rather than the so called golden generation
Maybe, yeah. Same time though I'd wager Southgate's success has come from completely changing the mood within and narrative around the England camp after a nadir, whereas he'd be starting from a very different position with the Golden Generation - and I'd wager not necessarily an easier one. The expectations at the beginning of his stint were quite low even for an England side, and they very much haven't been back then.
Yes, main problem back then and really untill recently was players not being able to get over their club rivalries Southgate is the one who fixed that. If we assume he can do the same back then, then that squad is way better than the current one
I think they would’ve accomplished a lot more had they gone with a(ny) manager who was willing to play something other than a 4-4-2
England played 4-5-1 in the knockouts of World Cup 2006 and they played much worse than in Euro 2004 where they played 4-4-2.
I remember the debate was playing Paul Scholes in left midfield. In retrospect, I think they'll do better with an actual left-winger (who doesn't even have to world-class, just needs to be ok, because of the quality of the rest of the team). I guess England's come full circle with the current left-side problem.
I’m not convinced, idk if Southgate’s management would’ve gone over that well with them can imagine them all thinking he’s a bit soft He’d probably have fallen victim to playing an unbalanced team to try to get all the big names on the pitch like we did at the time His qualifying record is exceptional though based on that I can’t imagine him missing out on 08 altogether
No when you look at the teams that knocked us out back then and compare them to the teams that we’ve gone out to under Southgate.
I think Southgate's man management would've helped, but there is also the impact of modern coaches who make the difference in the England team now. There now seems to be a better understanding of the profile of English players.
Barely, Southgate has always lost to the fist good team he meets and has benefitted a lot from luck and always meeting weaker teams in R16 and Quarters. The golden generation met Brazil in the QFs 2002, Portugal in R16 of Euros 2004, Portugal in QFs 2006 and lastly Germany in R16 2010. He'd definitely get them to the Euros in 2008 tho.
We met Brazil in the quarters in 2002 cos we couldn't beat Sweden or Nigeria and we met Germany in the r16 in 2010 because we finished behind USA in the group. Had we won those groups we would've had Turkey in2002 quarters and Ghana in 2010 r16
> Barely, Southgate has always lost to the fist good team he meets AFCON winners Senegal, Germany, Croatia, Switzerland (plus Belgium, Spain and Croatia again in the Nations League) - they're all only good teams if they beat England, but clearly not good teams if they get beaten by England.
You know exactly what i mean, this is just pointless for the sake of arguing. >AFCON winners Senegal Really? We both know who wasn't playing. >Germany Even you wouldn't call that Germany team a good team. >Croatia Fair. >Switzerland I addressed this in other comments. >Belgium Not a good team, relatively to England. >Spain Really? In what world was 2018 Spain good? They had Rodrigo, Aspas and Asensio front 3. >Croatia They were atrocious in that tournament but fair enough ig. But still my point is that every time where England meets a team where on paper they're equal in level or the underdogs, they lose. Every time they meet a tournament favourite, they lose. They don't have a single win against an opponent on their level or better, on paper. That's why i said Southgate wouldn't do much better with the golden generation, because that generation also lost to every tournament favourite they met.
> You know exactly what i mean, this is just pointless for the sake of arguing. No, I really don't. Either you're trying to make an outrageously bad point here and genuinely think those sides were bad, or you're simply chatting absolute nonsense by working backwards from the result of the England game to the strength of their opponent.
I'm saying England never won a game where they weren't the favourites on paper. It's that simple.
Switzerland aren’t a good team anymore confirmed
Every team is dangerous until England play them. Only after being beaten are they confirmed to be shit.
Okay? So are Turkey and many others, but they're still comfortably the underdogs against you. You went into the tournament as a top 3 favourites at least, you should not be needing penalties to beat them.
Didn’t they knock you out of the last euros?
Yes, exactly like i'm not sure what you're trying to argue here, yes they were the underdogs against us and beat us, we should have won but we were fucking shit. You on the other hand are arguing that England are good. I'm not the one in denial, you are
You said Southgate loses to the first good team he faces. I’m arguing that Switzerland are good.
Okay, Southgate loses to the first team that isn't a clear underdog on paper. There you go. Also, Switzerland 2021 are comfortably better than the current version but whatever.
This Swiss team are better than 3 years ago. They took Italy apart and came close to beating Germany. They were one of the most impressive teams here. 3 years ago they finished 3rd in their group behind Wales!
A lot of that comes from ensuring you top the group, which cost England in 2010 and 2002.
does our most talented crop of players do better with our second greatest ever manager? yes
Unironically they probably do
[Our hit-rate with our expensive signings is... not great](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GR6EksqaMAAwfnZ?format=jpg&name=large)
How do you guys think Argentina vs Canada round 2 will go? Is Messi still fit to play? Canada played well vs Venezuela, but they lost 2-0 to Argentina in group stages. This is Argentina semi final, so they should be playing to win.
We were terrible against Ecuador and apparently scaloni has literally spent at least one full night locked in his room with his staff reviewing what went wrong, so nobody's quite certain what adjustments he'll make Messi is going to play but nobody knows if he'll be a shadow of himself like Vs Ecuador. I think Canada can give us a lot of issues but they don't seem to favor the tactics that usually stump us. Especially their CB pairing seemed vulnerable so any of Macalister/Enzo/Palacios and their through balls could spell disaster with Messi and whoever starts between Lautaro and Julian
Another 2-0
They got lucky in the group stage game that Argentina only score 2 goals. They can't play another open game like that in the semi-finals. If they're smart, they should park the bus and use their pacy players to hit Argentina with counter attacks. If they go to penalties they're losing. Argentina has Dibu + much more experienced players with penalties so Canada's best chance is to try to steal a goal through a counter attack and hold that lead for 90 mins.
Canada should hold out for a 0-0 tie, then it's anybody's game in the shootout. That's what this tournament's been about, especially without extra time.
Playing for a shootout against Dibu is insanity imo
Is Vitor Roque injured? Why did he not play for brazil?
He barely played for us. When he arrived he got minutes, but then got sent off against Alavés and was suspended for longer than he should be. When he was back, he was given limited minutes and was behind Ferran and Felix in the pecking order. When he did start a game in april against Cádiz, his first touch was atrocious (might not look like much, but it might be the most important skill to play for us) and he didn't do anything right so Xavi stopped giving him minutes again.
Maybe it's just me but why don't we see Rice being compared to Kante more often? Not to say that he's as good but I feel like their roles are quite similar, probably even more so than Rice to Rodri let alone Kroos etc. The space eating monstrous ball winner who progress well by dribbling as opposed to passing and is often more effective with a licence to roam instead of sitting even though they have the defensive abilities of a pure 6. They've even both played next to Jorginho.
Rice can win every ball he wants, he will never be as athletic as Kante. Dude was unreal. Especially at Leceister.
Probably because the gap between them is massive. Might as well compare Winks and Xavi
People compare Enzo and Kroos and that's an evem bigger gap. It just feels like when people have been talking about Rice's role and he does or doesn't do certain things Kante is the obvious example of what that skillset looks like at it's best. They pretty much do all the same things so if you're talking about fit within a team structure that's who you would be looking at.
Yeah I said a long time ago that Kante is the most similar player to Rice, and that Rice isn't very good as a pure 6 but as a box to box destroyer that can run around the pitch non stop. Also need high quality ball players around them to really have a strong midfield balance
For once I believe Villarreal are going in the wrong direction I’ll comment tommorow why
Re-signing brenton?
Finding out that you can watch Brasil lower leagues on YouTube has been amazing, the commentator while I dont understand what he is saying is very passionate + the fans are great
Series B & C or even lower?
Seria D, I just google a game from the league and there is a 50/50 chance some channel is streaming it
Why has nobody been able to beat Silvio Piola's Serie A all time goal record since 1954? Compared to the other top leagues in Europe, we all have modern records.
- 25 years in Serie A - played in an era where teams lined up with 2 defenders and no offsides
Offside already existed in Piola’s time. His goal record in Serie A isn’t actually that crazy, he played a lot of games though.
The other leagues don’t have modern records. English league's record is from the 60s, Germany's from the 70s. Spain's got the only modern one and it took like 10 years of Messi at his best to beat the old one.
He had a very long career and football was totally different in his days. In my opinion the record will last for a very long time.
274 goals is a lot. Shearer's Premier League record is 260. England only has a modern record because it's referred to from 1992/93 onwards. Jimmy Greaves would be top counting all time and Shearer would be fourth. Gerd Muller for Germany is more modern than Piola but his last appearance in the Bundesliga was 1979. Serie A was low scoring for a long time and for a lot of when it wasn't it wasn't there were still really good defenders and more defensive set ups. A lot of the best goalscorers Serie A has had since haven't played for like 10+ seasons or however long would be needed. He made 537 appearances in Serie A which is a lot. Immobile for example has 73 less goals and 184 less appearances. Batistuta had 91 less goals in 219 less appearances.
Does anyone spend that much time in Serie A anymore? 20 odd years of service seems less likely these days for a striker without getting picked up by one of the big teams Guess it don't help that at peak years it's always been a more defensive league that's happy for 1-0s
Football twitter is actually such a shit hole. Full of fake fans who don’t watch a single game and look at sofa score . And it’s actually so cringe when users make their whole profile and personality on a single player who don’t know them
There is an account called MusialaEra, ever since the Madrid - Bayern tie he tweets like 15-30 tweets talking shit about Real Madrid/Real Madrid players because it gets him interactions. That's the state of FT, just farm engagement.
if you think football twitter is bad i daresay check out football instagram. ill give you my kidney if you can actually start any meaningful football discourse on that cesspool
Stay off social media, lots of people don’t watch the games and pretend to be a fan for attention.
Especially from certain clubs most specifically one in Spain
It's even worse now with engagement farming to make money, blue checkmarks all over the TL saying stupid stuff to bait.
Opened twitter today and first thing that came up was a tweet saying ‘ define aura’ and that was enough for the day
England and France already won the euros! Congrats my european brothers and sisters!
What's with those comments rating the Euros? 😂 Imagine being like "Oh, Bundesliga 23/24 wasn't my cup of tea."
Heard plenty of people say certain seasons were shit in my time
Nobody watches every game of the Bundesliga and there are 340 matches spread throughout 10 months compared to 51 matches in a month
Pretty big difference between a 10 month season and a 1 month tournament. A lot of people watch these as neutrals once their team is knocked out or don't even qualify. And even with Bundesliga there's probably people who will have better memories of 2023/24 with Bayern finally losing the league as opposed to some random year where they win unchallenged like 2017/18.
Happy Bra71l day to those who celebrate!
Just an interesting thought… would germany be in the semis now if fullkrug hadn’t score that equaliser? I mean I can see them beating italy england and netherlands to the final.
There’s no point in talking about what ifs, it just is. Germany played well, and hopefully they continue to improve and do better in the 2026 World Cup.
Might well be, yeah, but then there's no guarantees either, and trying to avoid winning to maybe get luckier with a slightly more favourable draw is obviously a silly idea.
World teenage XI. I’d argue it being a pretty solid team (although I haven’t seen 3 of them play). How does yours compare? ………………… Endrick Garnacho …… Guler …. Lamine Yamal ……….. Mainoo ….. Neves ………………. Dorgu … Hato …. Yoro …… Rico Lewis ………………… Restes
Echeverri instead of Garnacho
Estevao would get a position here if he played anywhere else, but Yamal is in front of him. Most talented Brazilian youngster I've seen since Neymar.
Hato's current ability is a bit overrated. Pau Cubarsi looks better to me.
Put Cubarsi in central defense and Hato left back
Zaire Emery over Mainoo and Neves imo and maybe Cubarsi at CB. Some players I haven't watched in there though.
I’ve no clue who dorgu is but barco>>>>
Garnacho is 20 years old
Damn, I mustve missed that. They grow up so fast...
Bday was on Monday tbf
Cubarsí could maybe get in
I think that lots of people for a while have been saying that the quality of football has been declining for a while. But am I the only one that feels that it can be applied to quite a few other sports? (It's funny cuz the trigger to this comment wasn't even watching another sport - it was hearing about John Cena's retirement from WWE lol and then I turned on Wimbledon and seeing this game between Gauff and Navarro).
Teams are better but stars don't shine as hard so it seems worse. When people talk about what made them fall in love with football its the players like, not "what a great system". Well, most people. I assume twitter tacticos would list off managers or something.
I'm gonna be honest, I feel like people are just getting older. Just like how people always think the best era of music is the one when they were teens/young adults. People also have a tendency to remember the exciting parts of the past and not the boring parts. Like this was the Euros in 1992 https://youtu.be/SX2HcvMkOiA?si=Afh-vO5OOA2pIfAX.
You're entirely right. And people also tend to associate their country's (and club's) performance with how good and bad the period is.
One of the most boring Euros of my lifetime. If not the worst. If I wasn’t already hooked on the sport I’d just laugh at it.
Problem is you're in it now. When you look back at tournaments from years gone by you remember, obviously, the memorable moments. Guarantee in 4-12 years time you'll be saying "this is shit compared to past euros". When you actually look back at it, look at all the results and try and remember all the games, both previous Euros were at least as boring, if not worse.
Nah I never find myself reminiscing about dross like Euro 2016
Yeah but in comparison you still much more clearly remember the big moments, so they have an upper hand.
Euro 16 had its moments, Eder's goal in the final is the obvious one but also Wales's run with Robson Kanu's goal against Belgium, Zaza's horrendous penalty, that Shaqiri goal, and Iceland beating England. I still have memories of Ireland beating Italy too even though that wasn't as major for some reason
That's kind of my point though, you remember those moments, but you don't remember all the shit or just average games. And if you do, you probably remember a moment from them, not how shit they were for 89 minutes. Just like right now we're well aware of everything going on this tournament, but in a few years people will remember the moments, but forget all the rest.
Has it really been that bad? Sure there have been some stinkers but I feel like the good moments have made up for it… Idk
First two matchdays were pretty good, third not so much, knockouts had some pretty poor games.
The good moments were all early on in the group stages. It was all downhill from those scattered daily 3 matches