victims of their own success and hanging on to past glories

maybe he’ll give you a friends & family discount :D

It'll take Messi's departure for Barca to finally be able to move forward. Personally I'd rather see him retire than go to another club, but either way I do think he's gonna have to go before any Barca manager can even begin to make the fundamental changes necessary to turn things around.


I think it's more just a case of the club giving one player too much power. Understandable given who that particular player is but Barca once stood out as the very anti-thesis of that: a great team, a perfectly honed collective unit that's now descended into a Messi+10 circus.

apparently Messi decided he wanted to leave after his first conversation with Koeman in which he was told that "the privileges in this squad are over, you have to do everything for the team,"


the horror

i hear that, they are still taking about wanting to “build a team around messi” as if he were 21...

but what about the rest of the squad? piqué (33) busquets (32) alba (31) vidal (33), suárez (33), rakitic (32)? griezmann is a “new” hire at 29 and their “young” players are around age 26... except for démbélé (23) who didn’t play (was he injured or something?). they’re looking to the past not the future.

meanwhile, bayern fielded 19 year old rising star alphonso davis... and when old man boateng had to leave limping in came süle no problem... i was worried when this happened but defense actually improved. btw, leroy sané is coming to bayern next season (well, he’s already there).

That's true but here too Messi is central, as we know that since Pep left, the various club presidents have given Messi a huge say on things like player transfers, managerial appointments and tactics, even the power to veto any decision that he sees as potentially betraying the Cruyff-Rijkaard-Pep tradition that he seems incapable of looking beyond and believes should define Barca forever. There's an inner circle of players that includes Busquets and Pique who apparently share this view and were, until the arrival of Koeman-the-Heretic, considered untouchable within the club.

the... but... oh... hm...

i wasn’t aware of the internal politics in such detail, but just the other i did hear piqué offering to fall on his sword to bring about change to the club. that was still with quique though.
and i haven’t kept up with koeman’s recent arrival (things happen so fast these days) but ah...

so will pep and leo reunite in manchester? hahahaha. that would be something... wow

Think it's most telling that Pique said he'd be the first one to leave if needed and now we've not heard head nor tail from him.

Fuck em. Club deserves everything they get.

I stayed with them until Enrique left, prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. After that they just descended into pure farce. I'll never question their brilliance during the Pep years and still consider Messi a genius on the pitch but the behind the scenes nonsense means I've just lost interest in them now, as a club.

holy guacafuckingmole! i had no idea. well i had a bit of an inkling from argentina’s national team dramas, but not this.


so it was more threat than actual offer?

i begin to see...

Nah, he probably said it as an offer but had no intention of going without something following that is on equal money.

manny for shakira’s children? :D

ohohohohoooo lucky England!

David Silva has been away from Man City for all of a month. Already there's a trend from people saying he wasn't that great of a player and is massively overrated. It just confirms that most people don't know what they're talking about

Bielsa's 1st PL outing was a cracker. Unlucky against a slightly under-performing Liverpool, saved largely by Salah. If Leeds can play like that for the rest of the season they'll be fine.

An enjoyable game for sure. Reckon Liverpool will win the league again?

The fucking dumbass commentators did my head in though. Sniggering like school boys at the name Koch. Once would have been fine but I felt like everytime he did something they'd laugh about his name. Morons.

I'm backing Man City. but I can see the top 4-5 being far more competitive this year, with Chelsea and MU doing some great business in the summer, and Arsenal massively improving sine Arteta took over.

Can also see Everton having an excellent season and I'll be surprised if they finish below 8th.

All the bts stuff at West Ham makes me fear the worst for them already. Yet another season of only hoping there are three worst teams by the end of it.

EDIT: Just watched Everton beat Spurs. Looked very good. James is class, and Allan. Although I'd forgotten just how selfish and wasteful Richarlison is.

Also meant I'd be surprised if Everton finish below 7th, not 8th.

The future's bright, the future's blue.

wait, you got ham-mez now?

nbc is trying to splinter their fucked coverage of the prem into a bunch of different paid services

fuckem. bad luck for me. HALLO BUNDESLIGA, if i can still watch it on one channel.

==

oh shit it moved from fox to ESPN+

another fucking subscription!

lmao bye bye football i guess. i'll follow the financial news as a form of blood sport.