European football thread (CL, Europa)

[Bobby Sands]

^^do you even read the other posts before you post?

could you do so in future please.

every single post is about Barcelona and it seems to me that you dont read anyone elses posts here. you probably wont ever read this one.

 

[Sebastian]

Mourinho will coach Real and i would bet money on it that he will make them win the champions league within the next 2 years. Hes just the best.

 

[Flipmo]

If he wins another CL - would he be the only to do so with 3 different clubs?

 

[Duke]

^ Yup. So far only Hitzfeld, Happel and now Mourinho won it with two different clubs.

 

[Bobby Sands]

Why are Barcelona so annoying? Mainly it is the manner in which they paint themselves as 'més que un club'. Yeovil Town are more than a club. Get over it


This week two of the most bizarrely bloodless major transfers you could hope to see were decisively entrained. Amid scenes of absolutely no acrimony whatsoever, David Villa (already gone) and Cesc Fábregas (off soon) both pledged themselves to Barcelona, leaving Valencia and Arsenal looking a little bit like a man whose girlfriend has just been pinched by some entirely charming and handsome beret-sporting poseur who also manages to do a really good job of assuring them they should be feeling terribly flattered by all the attention. Barcelona are good at this. The most widely fawned-over of all clubs, theirs is a peculiar kind of velvet-glove imperialism. It is time someone took a stand on this. Mainly by breaking the omertà and pointing out that Barcelona are by some distance the world's most annoying football club.

Mainly it's to do with that sense of swooning self-love; not so much the idea but the manner in which they paint themselves as "més que un club". The fact is all football clubs are "more than a club". Yeovil Town are more than a club. Get over it.

Even more annoying, but related, is Barcelona's unshakeable conviction that they are intrinsically good. We are the ewoks here, they shriek. We are the Dukes of Hazard. Never mind that as a regional powerhouse they have such economic might they can even self‑righteously abjure shirt sponsorship (the Bono-style Unicef endorsement is also annoying. You keep thinking: just get Carlsberg on the phone and buy a proper centre-forward). No other football club anywhere insists with such needy, weepy fervour that you love it. This is cloying and I refuse to swoon.

Then there is Barcelona's cultural imperialism, a more subtle form of consumer home invasion than a shirt‑flogging friendly in China, whereby Barcelona instead style themselves as an elite product: the kind of brand adopted by people who feel they are above adopting brands. Barcelona are an iPod team, a vintage Japanese denim team; something undeniably good but also somehow tarnished by an accumulation of gloating approval. Naturally, with this in mind, it is easy to feel irritated by the manager Pep Guardiola, who is clearly bright and even nice but spoils this by looking like a swanky graphic designer, someone who might own a coffee table made out of barbed wire.

Above all I dislike their non‑contact tippy-tappy style of play, often deemed, like Barcelona themselves, to be intrinsically "good". I have a theory the popularity of this style owes a lot to the fact that it looks good on TV: a televisual style, suited to the armchair rhythms of possession-foul-replay-pundit-blather. It is so obviously and demonstrably high end. Oh look – a backheel! A dinky one-two! This is good football even if you don't really know that much about football, accessibly high spec like a £40 bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

But perhaps the most annoying thing is that so many players now feel bound to emote that it is "their dream" to play for them. It makes you wonder why Barcelona don't just franchise themselves in every country, a global Barcelona brand that might finally turn the world an annihilating shade of Barcelona; and where they can all play each other endlessly, untouchably good and pure. While the rest of us, Fábregas-less, are left to get on with our everyday bad football with its scruffiness and spikiness and enduring imperfections.

did you write that Duke? lol. but there is a dig towards Ibrahimovic in it so i doubt it

my bet that it was a Man Utd supporter who is still extremely butt hurt over that humiliation in Rome last year. It was on the Guardian website.

 

[Bobby Sands]

i was watching the 2005 CHampions league final again this evening. The two passes Kaka played to Crespo for AC Milan's second and third goals were out of this world. absolutely sublime. thank god that legend Hamann put the shackles on him in the second half though.

Carragher was something else in this game.

 

[Bobby Sands]

Mourinho will coach Real and i would bet money on it that he will make them win the champions league within the next 2 years. Hes just the best.

i have doubts. i dont doubt that he can do it but i do doubt that the Real Madrid supporters will tolerate his style of football for long. That club has a history and philosophy of not only winning but also playing attractive football. They want trophies and nice football.

i guess we will see though.

 

[Flipmo]

That rant about Barcelona is gay.

I do agree that Barca snatch away big name players ppl turn a blind eye to it, but they're ready to shit on Real Madrid. I hate it all forms of it, the money people spend to get players nowadays is just sad and pathetic, and Man City lead the pack in terms of retardation.

The writer just sounds ass sore cause his club was taken apart by Barca (like you said prob Man U fan), but you can't deny they play some great football, especially with Xavi stringing everything.

I do think there has been a surge in Barcelona fan boys though, just as when Real Madrid had their Galacticos. It happens with all big clubs. Look at Chelsea for instance... lol

 

[Duke]

That rant about Barcelona is gay.

I do agree that Barca snatch away big name players ppl turn a blind eye to it, but they're ready to shit on Real Madrid. I hate it all forms of it, the money people spend to get players nowadays is just sad and pathetic, and Man City lead the pack in terms of retardation.

The writer just sounds ass sore cause his club was taken apart by Barca (like you said prob Man U fan), but you can't deny they play some great football, especially with Xavi stringing everything.

I do think there has been a surge in Barcelona fan boys though, just as when Real Madrid had their Galacticos. It happens with all big clubs. Look at Chelsea for instance... lol

For me, it's not the fanboys but also the way Barca plays isnt only glorified, but other methods are villified. Not looking at you btw, Bobbo, but theres so many halfwits that are so convinced that Barca's style is the only proper way of play out there, it becomes rather annoying in the off-chance footy convo's you have with people.

Barca is very very good if theyre running on all cylinders, maybe the best, but its not as if it's undeserved when they're beaten. Their highly visually attractive style of play gets a lot of admiration, also from people that dont know very much about football . That's what irritates me about many of the comments you read on footy and newssites like goal.com. "If Barca this, if barca that, if the ref this, bla bla". Fuck it, they lost, fair and square. New chance next year.


On that aspect I agree with the writer. The glorification of their play. But the man exxagerates on the transfer thing and more than a club attitude. That's just vengeful. Funny article, though.

 

[tHuG $TyLe]

Barca can spend how much they want, when a team has 7-8 players from their youth team in their squad I don't see why people are getting annoyed that they are spending huge amounts on players.

Valdes
Pique
Puyol
Busquets
Xavi
Iniesta
Messi
Pedro
Bojan
+ Fabregas (is a product of their youth team)

 

[Bobby Sands]

and in Fabregas's case, they are attempting to bring a player that they made good and who Arsenal stole. I admire Barcelona for the way they play the game and because they are doing things the right way lately. im not a supporter of them or anything.


and Duke, i suggest stay away from goal.com. its a terrible website that appeals to those football fanboys.

 

[Flipmo]

For Real Madrid ... is there anyone that came from their youth systems else from Granero, Guti and Casillas?

That's shameful if so.

As for Goal.com - I stopped going there months ago before or else I would have put a fist through my PC screen.

 

[Bobby Sands]

For me, it's not the fanboys but also the way Barca plays isnt only glorified, but other methods are villified. Not looking at you btw, Bobbo, but theres so many halfwits that are so convinced that Barca's style is the only proper way of play out there, it becomes rather annoying in the off-chance footy convo's you have with people.

Barca is very very good if theyre running on all cylinders, maybe the best, but its not as if it's undeserved when they're beaten. Their highly visually attractive style of play gets a lot of admiration, also from people that dont know very much about football . That's what irritates me about many of the comments you read on footy and newssites like goal.com. "If Barca this, if barca that, if the ref this, bla bla". Fuck it, they lost, fair and square. New chance next year.


On that aspect I agree with the writer. The glorification of their play. But the man exxagerates on the transfer thing and more than a club attitude. That's just vengeful. Funny article, though.

why do you dislike the club that was effectively built up on the foundations laid by Cruyff though? this philosophy that Barca have? Cruyff started that off.

 

[Bobby Sands]

For Real Madrid ... is there anyone that came from their youth systems else from Granero, Guti and Casillas?

That's shameful if so.

As for Goal.com - I stopped going there months ago before or else I would have put a fist through my PC screen.

Raul and De La Red but it doesnt look like he'll play again, which is sad because he was a nice footballer.

 

[Flipmo]

Yeah, wasn't he treated like garbage there? What a rotten club to be a part of...

I never realized the number of home grown players Barca have in their starting line-up. I'm still not a fan of splurging so much money for players, but still ... nice to see players coming out of their youth system. Kinda like Betis for the most part.

 

[Bobby Sands]

also they brought Arbeloa through as well i think.

 

[Flipmo]

Arbeloa started off in Deportivo or Zaragoza first, I think...

Edit: Just checked, moved from the Zaragoza youth system, to the Real one. So I guess went through it techincally.

 

[tHuG $TyLe]

Raul is a product of Atletico Madrids youth team; They disbanded the youth team to cut costs I think, so Raul ended up going to Real Madrid.

 

[Bobby Sands]

^^true but he was still young at that stage wasnt he?

 

[Duke]

why do you dislike the club that was effectively built up on the foundations laid by Cruyff though? this philosophy that Barca have? Cruyff started that off.

I dont dislike Barca at all. But I loathe their deiification and that makes me a reactionist when it comes to Barca