2012 - 2013 Football Thread! - Page 303

On February 28 2013 16:01 Telcontar wrote:
This 'anyone could've won the treble with that barcelona squad' bullshit needs to stop. Either educate yourselves or shut the fuck up. Guardiola was certainly blessed with a supremely talented squad, but that only goes so far in winning games and trophies. There are many talented teams in the history of the game that never reached their full potential, which you cannot say of Guardiola's Barcelona. All the talent in the world means nothing if you cannot motivate your players or get them to play exactly the way you want. I will be the first to admit that Guardiola and Barcelona was a special fit, one he may never find again with another club, and vice versa. He was born and raised in their brand of football. Other than his intimate knowledge of the club and their philosophy, he is widely reported as a great man-manager of players, which is critical when dealing with big names. He also overhauled Rijkaard's squad and made some brave changes as well as taking chances with youngsters.

I concede that some people take praising him and his achievements a little too far. But you'd either have to be ignorant or an idiot to sit there and say anyone could've achieved what Guardiola did with that Barcelona squad.

On March 01 2013 19:28 Ysellian wrote:
I have to be honest, I don't know much about the MLS. I know Beckham and Donovan played in LA and Henry in New York, but that's where my knowledge ends. Are the stadiums full? Which teams are historically the biggest?

On March 02 2013 04:03 ZapRoffo wrote:

LA Galaxy is the premier team historically and recently (though historically isn't much since the league started in the mid 90's). It's getting big particularly in the western US (the east leans more toward watching European football--the east is always more traditional, and also the time zone difference is much more friendly for European ball in the east), most of the teams get like 15,000 per game. I went to Seattle last year and the Seattle Sounders definitely have a big presence there, and they get like 40,000 people per game, and they are coming to be a very successful team.

Of course it's still the US, so here's one of the funniest stories of last year: Robbie Keane is also on LA Galaxy. A newspaper in LA took a picture of him, Beckham and Russell Brand at a LA Lakers game, and the caption said "Soccer Player David Beckham, and actor Russell Brand pose for photo with unidentified fans."
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/soccer-dirty-tackle/next-david-beckham-russell-brand-robbie-keane-just-061916645--sow.html
Leading to twitter in the MLS championship being like, "What's that unidentified fan doing on the field." "Whoa that unidentified fan is pretty good." "Thank god there was an unidentified fan who turned out to be so good for LA." etc..

So today, big Serie A game, Juve vs. Napoli could decide whether there's a title race to speak of or not. Napoli hasn't been very good recently but I think they'll bring it today.

On March 02 2013 05:45 WhiZ wrote:
joey barton still classy

On March 02 2013 08:01 Ysellian wrote:


Haha damn that's pretty funny. Poor Robbie Keane. I guess some journalists don't follow really know much. And Thanks for the info! I would never have guessed Seattle to have such a big presence. 40k people per game is rather impressive and 15k isn't a bad number. I'm guessing it's growing in popularity?

On March 02 2013 09:23 ZapRoffo wrote:


It is, it's just a little misleading because the US has so many major metropolitan areas with multi-million numbers of people. You have to remember the US has about the population of Germany, UK, Spain, Italy and France combined. Almost all these teams are the primary team of a city that has a metro area of at least like 2 million people. Like if you think of Valencia--third biggest city and team in Spain, it would be basically among the smallest cities in MLS.

New York is the biggest failure in that regard, it's one of the most international cities in the world and it has like 20 million people in the metro area, and their avg. attendance is less than 20K with a capacity of 25K. Of course being called the New York Red Bulls is just asking for it, it's like the least fashionable way you could market your team in one of the most fashion and authenticity obsessed cities in the world. New York Cosmos is coming back (in the second division next season) though and with its legendary brand (in the old NASL in the 70's they had Pele and Beckenbaeur and Giorgio Chinaglia playing for them) if they joined MLS and got some recognized players it would probably have a big impact.

On March 02 2013 23:45 WillyWanker wrote:
Real Madrid - Fc Barcelona (ONE MORE) in 20 minutes!