I stand corrected.. it appears jayzonce were invited to the match by Becks who apparently signed a contract with Paris St Germain.... again I have no idea, I dont follow league futbol, but in LA Barcelona was always scorned as the villain.. my bad yo!

eta: buffon's kissyface was with tiago (who used to play @ juve)

Curious as to why that would be. Chelsea fans tend not to like Barcelona after they felt they were cheated out of a final due to their cheating and Real fans obviously hate them, but I don't know why a US city would be anti. Most neutrals like them and, even if they don't, it'll probably be cos they're perceived as being a bit too 'nice'. At least that's how the media presented them during the Mourinho-Pep years. A bit of a Beatles v Stones thing. Barca were definitely playing the Beatles role in that rivalry.

so far the game pretty clogged up and a bit violent

best part of it all was simeone kicking the ball in ha ha ha

Hahaha. Totally agree. All a bit meh so far. Both teams playing in the centre. Probably favour Juve but nothing much in it. They both probably know they can afford to draw this one. Ref needs to stop blowing up for every bit of contact.

Chiellini looks like precisely the player Man U should've bought. Love that man.

man, what a letdown. juventus pretty horrible--- lost a lot of balls with bad passes, vidal had a pretty horrid day, pogba in spite of the hype looks like a slow lumbering beast, tevez the only one trying something until they got scored on. meanwhile, for all the fouling and interruptions, madrid was more interesting on the attack, and so they got their goal.

now with 4 minuts to go, the butchery continues, pogba carded, and i don't see a juve goal coming from anywhere.

The UK commentator was finally praising Atletico for providing a masterclass in destroying a game. Kind of see what he means but kind of enjoyed it too. Not a pretty match, probably neither side deserved to win but Atletico weren't giving anything away. Am I right in thinking Juve's best chance was probably that near own-goal towards the end? Simeone's building a massive reputation right now.

I honestly have no idea why Barcelona is a villain in LA, possibly a bunch of Madrid fans? What I do know is (a) only the worst kinds of LA people supported Barcelona (from celebs and trendy hipsters to over assholes and snobs) over the past 20 years and (b) if you did vocally support Barcelona you'd get a lot of shit.

Again, I don't follow league futbol because simply put, its too damned complicated. All these different cups, trophies, and competitions, I can't hardly invest any more time trying to figure out what it all means. American sports are simple, win your division, win your conference/league, win the Championship, done deal. There aren't lesser championships and while there are lesser leagues (the D-Leagues in basketball and the minor leagues in baseball) nobody pays any attention to them aside from locals.

i thought they were both equally destructive but juve was more wasteful with their chances. but tell me about pogba. after all his years of promise, we get this???

Yeah, Pogba looked more likely to get a card than a goal.

Juve had all the possession and probably should've created more, but Atletico were very well organised. The game itself probably needed Juve to score first just to bring Atletico out. As it was, once Atletico went ahead they just shut Juve down completely.

on good news (for me) dortmund beat anderlecht 3-0 and leverkusen beat benfica 3-1. can't wait to watch the replays.

schalke unfortunately tied with maribor--i didn't know about this maribor until recently, i thought it was made up, a printing error, but no, they exist, even though they sound like a shipping company or something, it's an actual city (!). i feel fucking ignorant.

Big news in England was probably Arsenal's win, although the radio phone-ins were all about Liverpool's defeat. The usual crap. Fans calling in saying Rodgers should be sacked. One even arguing he should be replaced by Pulis.

It's an interesting thing with football fans. They're mostly silent when their team wins. It's only when they lose that they seem to have something to say.

Ronaldo opened vote for FifPro World XI, where players choose their best XI (gk, 4xdf, 3xmf and 3xfw) from the 2013-2014 season.

Team from the 2012-2013 =

Manuel Neuer
Dani Alves, Thiago Silva, Sergio Ramos, Philipp Lahm
Franck Ribery, Xavi, Andres Iniesta
Lionel Messi, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Cristiano Ronaldo

Obviously plenty there who won't make the 2013-14 team. Surprised if Messi or Zlatan keep their place, making way for Robben? Neymar? Costa? Suarez? Definitely can't see Xavi remaining, either. Xabi Alonso going in instead?

from last season? see if i can remember... hmmmmm… er….

from the pro season or does this include the world cup?

if including world cup i'd say

neuer
lahm boateng mascherano godin?
di maria james? ----?
robben muller bale?

i dont know.

Yeah, seems like years ago now. I really don't know either, but I think it's for the regular season. Not sure though. Would probably include a spine of

Neuer
Lahm, ?, ?, ?
Alonso, ?, Ronaldo
?, Costa, Suarez

but not sure/can't remember who else.

Of course you can. Just stop letting yourself get distracted with all that NFL and NBA silliness. It's not a lack of time that's your problem so much as poor management of it.

Hahaha... that may be, let me rephrase that. I have not INTEREST in getting into league futbol ;)

haaa haaa haaa haaa

so true.

ANYWAY

caught the first half of dortmund/anderlecht this morning (on replay). lively and amusing, catch it if you can, the opposite of juve vs. atlético-- open and dynamic, and also less interesting tactically-- at least the portion i've seen. lots of chances for goals on both sides, and yet it remained 1-0…. tomorrow i'll try catching the 2nd half to see the other 2 goals.

one good piece of this puzzle was that kagawa is finally firing on all cilinders sitting behind immobile (lewandowski's replacement). that's his best spot, and that's what manchester united didn't figure out (and kloppo complained about) by putting him as a pure striker. some of the balls he put there were so pretty…. eh, try to see it. here's hoping that dortmund gets out of the muck in the bundesliga table….

I kind of want Dortmund to do well, mainly cos of Klopp.

Re Kagawa, you might find this article from a couple of weeks ago quite interesting.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/foo...gen-Klopp.html

yes, man u wasted kagawa by taking him out of his best role.

here's an article that explains it all (it's a bit old):

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/footba...kagawa-1902608

so it was left wing not striker like i said. but yeah.

-----

funny thing i saw this morning

so bonucci sez juve forced atletico to sit back, michael cox calls him a plonker:

https://twitter.com/Zonal_Marking/st...33293349068801

here's the original story:

http://www.football-italia.net/56696...fensive-atleti

No, I know the circumstances of him being played out of position, what was interesting about the Fergie article was his apologetic tone; admitting he could've done more.

aaaaah! fergie! right… he's barely in my radar ha ha ha. though much respect for his legendary career.

tomorrow dortmund plays hamburg. by all expectations, it should be a thrashing. and yet… who the hell knows.

i might watch bayern / hannover instead. they're simultaneous so i'll have to choose… :(

Fergie fascinates me as much now, after retiring, as when he was at MU. I sometimes wonder if I'm actually more interested in football managers than I am football. I'm invariably more excited by the appointment of a big name manager than I am a big name player. I love the egos and the whole cult of personality surrounding figures like Fergie, Mourinho, Pep, Klopp, Ancelotti, etc even when I know they're over-inflated. They're like football's Cecil B DeMilles.

No football for me tomorrow. Being taken to an outrageously posh restaurant instead. Go moi.

well yes, they're the philosopher kings of these little tribes. that's part of the reason i'm more attracted to dortmund than to bayern these days. klopp > pep for me.

and i might have shared this with you earlier but here it is again anyway

http://www.theguardian.com/football/...ampions-league

enjoy

Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester. Friend's birthday. He's paying. But means I'll miss all the football. And it's 'modern French' so I'll most likely leave still hungry. Probably a quick Maccy Ds after, on the way home, hopefully in time for the highlights.

But yeah, managers, they provide a bit of personality as the players themselves become evermore media trained - unless their name's Suarez, or Balotelli, of course. But it's really only the managers now, who give a bit of a human touch to an otherwise increasingly corporate game.

I agree. I get a football magazine every month and for the most part it's actually pretty interesting*. However, the interviews with players still playing are some of the most dull reads I can imagine.

There was a piece just before the world cup where they interviewed Messi, Falcao (lol) and the like; it really was some of most banal interviews going "yes I'm looking forward to the world cup, and I believe we can win this year" and repeat.


*a friend of mine bought a few old issues for 20p in the market. There was one which had a small profile of John Terry when he was 19. In it there's a quote from then manager Vialli who said "He earned that Young Player of the Year award through his style of play, his demeanour both and off the pitch. He is a credit to his family and his friends" Brilliant.

I hope you're going wearing a west ham team and saying things like "having a bit a banter"

Two words: Stephen; Gerrard. His interviews are so awful they're almost entertaining ... almost. Rooney's too. His post match interviews are brilliantly awful. Like he's reading lines in a school play. But Michael Owen has to hold the trophy for giving the most meaningless interviews ever. Absolute personality bypass.

The only football magazine I read now is When Saturday Comes, which is still pretty good, perhaps because it never bothers to interview players.


Classic. Not sure JT's family's ever been a credit to him either, though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBvyKJjc7PI

It's absolutely cruel but in terms of credit to family, the song West Ham sang to Lampard when he missed a penalty a few games after his mum had died is an all-time gem: "You've let your mum down; you've let your mum down. Frankie Lampard, you've let your mum down."

Thats some cold blooded shit right there.. at least in NFL or NBA when a player has a death in the family even his ugliest rivals tip their cap if he chooses to play and offer him sincere condolences and also respect for playing in such difficult circumstances.. if I watched a game where a player was getting dissed after a tragedy id probably never watch that team who dissed play again. Fuck that. The sports I follow respect real life shit, not acting like middle.school yo

Fans can be brutal and I mean brutal to players. A guy called Lee Hughes ended up killing a guy and leaving a woman and another guy seriously injured cos of drink driving. He (Hughes) ended up in prison for I think it was 4 (checks wiki-it was 3) years and then was allowed to play football again.

I went to see him play against Preston. The crowds response? Every time he got the ball the crowd would go mental and just shout murderer. Every. single. time.

The other (more famous) example is with Stan Collymore who hit his Mrs' Ulrika Jonsson in a bar. That incident alone has dogged him ever since.

This example when he was doing a phone in for talksport radio He hit that like you hit Ulrika Jonsson

And on, and on it goes. Anyhoo I'm rambling.

oh ha ha. what is "modern french"? no confit? no goose liver?




i don't wanna quote everything you wrote but that was some good rambling.

------------------

on german news, bayern CREAMED hannover today, 4-0, in spite (or because of?) some guardiolo experiments like a 4-3-3 with alaba & lahm on the midfield.

but no, the real cause was that robben played and he cut through his wing like the defense was cream cheese.

and this is the first time i think i see them together but xabi and robben teamed up before at real madrid yes? i had forgotten. no!! xabi alonso was at liverpool.

on small sad news, dortmund LOST to hamburg 1-0. i suppose it's the price of beating anderlecht mid-week but come on!

eta: xabi alonso: https://mtc.cdn.vine.co/r/videos_h26...99aef60bda.mp4

No idea what half of it was but it was fucking amazing. Bits I remember are John Dory with green smudges around it and a pigeon thing that was orgasmic. As a foodie yourself you'd have probably been far more receptive to the nuances than I was. Amazing nonetheless.


You'd seriously hate West Ham. I remember when Sol Campbell came out about having mental health problems. The response from West Ham fans was to chant, "Two Sol Campbells, there's only two Sol Campbells." but as H8Kurdt says, football supporters in general are absolutely brutal about stuff like that. They'll say about anything to try and put off a player or silence rival supporters. It's utterly indefensible on any normal moral grounds and does sometimes go too far, as with West Ham in particular appearing on national news because of antisemitic chants towards Spurs (who have a large Jewish fanbase).

My favourite chants are actually the more self deprecating ones, like this, sung to Man City fans as West Ham were getting completely thrashed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbfy05y5Ukw

That's straight up genius. Even the MC fans were applauding it.

When I grow up I want to be Xabi Alonso

Brilliant. And doesn't everyone want to be Xabi? He's one of the few man crushes I have.

Have you noticed how Gerrard's been going all out recently, trying to cultivate the Alonso look?



It's like Rodgers has told him, he's getting on a bit and should play deeper, like Alonso, and he's taken the whole comparison way too far.

Alonso joined Real the year they sold Robben to Bayern so I suppose this is the first time they've played together.

And he's apparently already breaking Bundesliga records.

http://prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com/2...d-for-touches/

It must be fucking brilliant, being Xabi Alonso.

holy shit what a great first half for man u (sorry h8kurdt)

di maria ON FIRE!!! (falcao not so much)

eta: de gea!!!! uauzu!

ps

please don't insult me like that! i'm just a glutton dedicated to his vice ha ha ha.

Yeah I'm not happy. God knows what the fuck is going with Everton so far. You know you've got a bad day in the office when Baines misses a penalty.

Total dude.