Do you think Koeman will survive the international break?

Seems like he will after a statement by Moshiri was released


This guy had been swinging his dick saying how he was bringing ambition back to the squad and then a few games into the season he says "Burnley was the only unexpected loss" I mean, jesus, how little ambition can you have saying that?!

And THEN him saying how there's mental and physical fatigue is an absolute joke. If he was saying that after a bad run at the end of the season you'd say "ok, it's been a long season and I get that". Not fucking on the 1st of October!

Is it May yet?

Not trying to devalue bigger things by relating them to football but fucking hell is the classico gonna be intense from now on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ASfM6bKMZo

Pep was apparently in Munich this week, advising Bayern on who they should get to replace Ancelotti. The new manager is apparently now decided and looks likely to be Luis Enrique.

http://www.teamtalk.com/news/former-...-bayern-munich

Although other reports are saying Heynckes might come back to see out this season with them.

http://www.teamtalk.com/news/heyncke...ole-for-alonso

oh ha ha ha ha ha it's heynckes!!! for interim!

applause, applause

thanks for all the updates. i try to stay away completely to minimize my suffering, kinda like a "clean breakup", or a sour grapes situation, but i can't help myself and look in anyway because i'm a sucker for these stories.

Yeah it looks like it'll be Heynckes. It's just an interim appointment but I'm always a bit disappointed when big teams go back to a tried and trusted name. It makes sense short-term though. But it makes already out of work names like enrique and Tuchel less likely as the ultimate replacement. Looks more like it'll be someone already in a job who'll take over next year. Klopp maybe? He's popular at Liverpool and seems to like it there but they could easily find themselves squeezed out of a CL spot just because of the competition for places in the EPL. Anyway, I know his name's being mentioned. Although that could all just be paper talk, of course.

Either way, it looks like the Bayern players really weren't happy with Ancelotti. Surprising really, as one thing he's associated with is his good relationship with players. Although a lot of the time that comes from occasions when he's been brought in to replace Mourinho and the dressing room chaos he invariably creates/encourages.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/f...-a7980666.html

Although didn't Ribery also have a problem with Pep?

Starts to look like Bayern might be a really difficult dressing room to manage.

yes! he did. but he's a cranky frenchman. expected. now he's injured with a sprained knee or something lol.

robben seems to have been the most up in arms though. due to poor training.

the thing with henyckes is: at least he's bound to get respect from players. plus he's a hothead won't put up with shit i expect.

i gotta run but will return to post you an interview i read w/ lewandowski. looks like a smart guy who understands things.

--

ETA:here it is: http://www.dw.com/en/robert-lewandow...all/a-40432957

Yeah, Lewandowski seems pretty clued up.

Besides all the talk about identity, etc, if Bayern's board refuse to pay market price for the best players, it won't matter who they bring in as manager. They'll just stop being competitive at the top top level. A €40m transfer record in 2017 just isn't realistic for a team with their ambitions.

Also, on the players respecting Heynckes, I imagine the majority of them there now never even played under him. And if those that did, found it hard respecting two of the most successful managers in the history of the game, then that says more about their own arrogance than anything else.

robben ribéry boateng and mueller all played and championed under him so the anti-carletto cabal is covered there. (never knew who was the 5th one).

some of them did love pep-- mueller did excellent under pep and so did boateng.

as for the arrogance, i don't know-- the past is the past, people change all the time, and if they felt they weren't training hard enough then maybe they weren't?nobody ever said that pep doesn't train his players hard.

but i don't know/can't say.

I suppose the other one would be Neuer

ALL RIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS, TODAY IS JUDGEMENT DAY!!



Last goddamn game for everybody, do-or-DIE:



Pretty hardcore, huh? Wait 'til you see the fixture:



Basically what we have is five teams battling for three rockets to Russia (well, two and a half). It's all so fucked up that those in the third and fourth places right now could end up seventh. To get a load of the possibilities, go here, scroll all the way down to "Fecha 18 - 10 de octubre de 2017" and enter your predictions — the table on the right will change automatically accordingly... Not for the faint of heart!

holy shit, chile out, punked by brazil!

argentina wins in quito and leaps ahead!

final table

2018 FIFA World Cup qualification - CONMEBOL
Standings
#
Team
MP
W
D
L
GF
GA
GD
Pts

1 Brazil
18
12
5
1
41
11
30
41

2 Uruguay
18
9
4
5
32
20
12
31

3 Argentina
18
7
7
4
19
16
3
28

4 Colombia
18
7
6
5
21
19
2
27

5 Peru
18
7
5
6
27
26
1
26

6 Chile
18
8
2
8
26
27
-1
26

7 Paraguay
18
7
3
8
19
25
-6
24

8 Ecuador
18
6
2
10
26
29
-3
20

9 Bolivia
18
4
2
12
16
38
-22
14

10 Venezuela
18
2
6
10
19
35
-16
12

1-4 are in for sure, 5 goes to the ‘repechaje” (how do you say that?) and 6+ are out

so the last chapter in this saga will be perú-new zealand

Athletes need to be fitted with microchips, in a similar way that dogs are, in the fight against drug cheats in sport, according to a leading representative of international sports people.\\\\

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...st-drug-cheats

incredibly tight table or what?

argentina went from 6th to 3rd in one game

No reaction to USA's exit?

i wasn’t aware of it!

DANG

maybe klinsmann was right after all? and did better than anybody else could?

a pity that poor little pulisic is gonna be out of the world cup. that’s someone who really should be there

could he repatriate as croatian??

—

eta: googled a bit of new to read about it (was quite buried) and found this summary of the slow death:

https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2017/...cup-qualifying

although truly the hexagonal is the hexagonal— whatever happened before doesn’t count. e.g. — argentina on the conmebol table. whatever fucked shit they did before didn’t matter— they beat ecuador and made it to 3rd place.

Yeah it was a surprise. I hadn't really followed their qualifiers but I just sort of assumed they'd get through. That article does read like one disaster after another. Klinsmann probably did have some good ideas but by the time he was sacked I do think his time was up. Whether Arena was the right replacement, I dunno. But I assume he was just a short term appointment so a logical choice in lots of ways. Is there enough quality in the squad itself, compared with previous WCs?

me too—this was a suprise

last i heard they were in the hexagonal and from there it would be smooth sailing

but i haven’t really been following or watching

i’ll be frank—it’s hard for me to take u.s. soccer seriously. it starts with the absurd league that tries to imitate american football with its byzantine “conferences” and playoffs and weird hiring rules— i don’t have the time or energy to make sense of it. but i’ll say this much— if i ever move back to a town that has an mls team, i might start catching games at the stadium. i just like stadium games. don’t need to follow a league to see a game.

anyway i couldn’t tell you about the quality of the latter squad i have no idea who was in it or who is who anymore. but i know pulisic from dortmund. the kid is fantastic, and now it will be another 5 years till he gets a chance to see a world cup. a pity for him really. he’ll be about 24 in 2022. pelé missed some world cups too. o well.

eta: looking at wikipedia it looks like the same squad from 2-4-8 years ago, just older (except for pulisic... and a couple of others)


# Pos. Player Date of birth (age) Caps Goals Club
1 GK Tim Howard March 6, 1979 (age 38) 121 0 United States Colorado Rapids
12 GK Brad Guzan September 9, 1984 (age 33) 58 0 United States Atlanta United
22 GK Nick Rimando June 17, 1979 (age 38) 22 0 United States Real Salt Lake
2 DF DeAndre Yedlin July 9, 1993 (age 24) 48 0 England Newcastle United
3 DF Omar Gonzalez October 11, 1988 (age 29) 48 3 Mexico Pachuca
5 DF Matt Besler February 11, 1987 (age 30) 47 1 United States Sporting Kansas City
7 DF DaMarcus Beasley May 24, 1982 (age 35) 126 17 United States Houston Dynamo
14 DF Tim Ream October 5, 1987 (age 30) 26 1 England Fulham
15 DF Jorge Villafaña September 16, 1989 (age 28) 14 0 Mexico Santos Laguna
19 DF Graham Zusi August 18, 1986 (age 31) 55 5 United States Sporting Kansas City
20 DF Geoff Cameron July 11, 1985 (age 32) 55 4 England Stoke City
4 MF Michael Bradley (Captain) July 31, 1987 (age 30) 140 17 Canada Toronto FC
6 MF Darlington Nagbe July 19, 1990 (age 27) 24 1 United States Portland Timbers
10 MF Christian Pulisic September 18, 1998 (age 19) 20 9 Germany Borussia Dortmund
11 MF Alejandro Bedoya April 29, 1987 (age 30) 65 2 United States Philadelphia Union
13 MF Dax McCarty April 20, 1987 (age 30) 13 0 United States Chicago Fire
16 MF Benny Feilhaber January 19, 1985 (age 32) 44 2 United States Sporting Kansas City
21 MF Paul Arriola February 5, 1995 (age 22) 15 2 United States D.C. United
23 MF Kellyn Acosta July 24, 1995 (age 22) 16 1 United States FC Dallas
8 FW Clint Dempsey March 9, 1983 (age 34) 141 57 United States Seattle Sounders FC
9 FW Bobby Wood November 15, 1992 (age 24) 36 10 Germany Hamburger SV
17 FW Jozy Altidore November 6, 1989 (age 27) 110 41 Canada Toronto FC
18 FW Chris Wondolowski January 28, 1983 (age 34) 35 11 United States San Jose Earthquakes

ps i cannot say i noticed bobby wood at hamburg when i was still watching last season

The US should throw an open cheque book at Diego Simeone; he'd build you a wall that no Mexican (or T&T or Costa Rican) could ever get past. Surprised Trump isn't already talking to him.

... unless he's already having words with the wallmeister himself

i dont think agent orange cares for “foreign” sports, like many of his generation, so fortunately he’s out of the picture here

there is talk of the soccer federation president getting replaced though, so we’ll see

right now seems to me the priority would be to develop young players. i get that a defensive minded coach can make a lot with little talent but you still need talent. and i don’t know much about the state of the current pipeline—but my impression is: no good

a good article asking 'what now?'

https://www.theguardian.com/football...ld-cup-effects

For the absolute non plus ultra of fascist "American" oligophrenia against fútbol, turn to Ann Coulter's vomit during Brazil 2014:

http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-06-25.html

nice writeup! thanks

oh no... no thanks! i’m familiar enough...

why suffer? :D

Kin hell. Forgot that the Dortmund/Leipzig was on today and pretty much missed it all. It;s at 70 minutes now and 2-3 to Leipzig.

I made the mistake of watching Man U v Liverpool. Boring as fuck.

Yeah, so did I. The crazy thing was people ACTUALLY expected it to be anything more than a dull game. My friend had just broken up with his Mrs so wanted to watch it with company. Things you do for friendship!

Oddly, coral had odds of 10/1 for a 0-0 game

I knew it wouldn't be high scoring but I'd kind of fooled myself into thinking it'd be interesting, tactically. It wasn't. Mourinho reverted to type. Had Liverpool scored early, when they had that chance, it would've at least forced MU to react ... but no.

But the big story has to be Palace beating Chelsea. No one could've seen that coming. It made MC's 7-2 look predictable. Which it sort of was ... apart from Stoke's 2, maybe. Oh yeah, and Arsenal losing to Watford. Although does that really qualify as an upset these days?

Reckon that's the end now for Bilic.

Ah man, I didn't get to watch it but the read up of it sounds pretty scathing. Thing is as decent of a guy Bilic seems to be I don't think he's got the nous. That being said it doesn't help having one too many players content to just shuffle about for silly money.

Worst of all me that say what you like about Kenwright at least he's not a group of tory cunts decimating any identity the West Ham and their fans had about them.

Where do you see the team in a years time? Reckon they'll avoid the drop?

And I guarantee Southgate will still put Hart at No. 1 in the England squad.

Right now it feels pretty hopeless. Replacing Bilic might solve this particular crisis but Sullivan, Brady, et al, are the real problem, with their behind the scenes tinkering and inability to shut their mouths in public. What manager worth his salt will be willing to come in and work with their bullshit? Until they go we're fucked.

Southgate is an under-21s coach, tops. He probably has some ok ideas but he's ultimately an FA blazer, a yes man, who lacks the personality to motivate anyone. I've no idea who we should take instead, though. No one English, anyway. I mean who is there?

It's always been the same with the FA. A load of bully boys who don't want anyone who will ruffle some feathers. It's something that's been like that since Clough. And it won't change.

For me that's one of my biggest what-ifs. What if Clough had gotten the England job. The situation with the England squad would be VERY different to what it is now.

As for who would join West Ham, the fact that Benitez went to Newcastle, of all places, should give a glimmer of hope.

In fairness, from Clough's (non-)era to now we've tried just about everything: big respected names like Capello; more traditional up n at em types like Keegan, and pretty much everything in between. None of them worked out. Southgate definitely represents the worst side of the FA but it's not like they haven't been bitten before, trying more interesting and ambitious alternatives. Whoever can stop us choking in big games will be a national hero, for sure, but god knows who that person is, or where we'll find him.

NEWS

Everton and West Ham are still shit

Haha. We should have a little mini league for who's shittest.

At least you've sacked Koeman so there's some glimmer of hope there. We're sticking with Bilic so the agony just carries on.

Aye, but the big question is who do they replace him with. If Moshiri is that serious about the ambition etc then he'll throw all his money into a marquee signing.

Wish list

Simeone
Napoli's Sarri
....







....






...





Everyone else.

And I won't be happy unless it's one of them two :D

To be honest, if Bilic goes, I'd take Koeman as his replacement. Everton were right to sack him, things went irepperably wrong for him there, but that could be for any number of reasons. I still think he's a decent manager.

As for who should replace him at Everton, deep breaths, cos you know it'll be David Unsworth.:D

Fucking hell

Spurs 2 - 3 West Ham

Whatever eventually happens to Bilic that was an absolutely epic performance. Beautiful.

The big manager out there right now is Carlo Ancelotti, I'm wondering where he goes. I bet he would love to stick to Chelsea with another team...