2017 - 2018 Football Thread - Page 101

On October 18 2017 06:30 city42 wrote:
If Casemiro pulled out a gun and shot someone on the pitch, would the ref give a foul? His luck is incredible.

On October 18 2017 06:36 Rebs wrote:


I would take the point and move on, Real were quite superior.

On October 18 2017 06:42 city42 wrote:

Excuse me? I can discuss whatever I want. I will gladly take the point (Madrid certainly edged it) but Casemiro gets away with murder in seemingly every big match. Perhaps he made a Faustian deal.

My post had absolutely nothing to do with tonight's result, merely an observation. I expected a 3-0 or 3-1, this result is incredible.

On October 18 2017 06:13 Pandemona wrote:
Yeah not going to lie i don't like Benzema at all but he is so awful man lol. Just play Ronaldo striker and let asensio and vasquez get valuable game time until they can bring in Kane next summer!

On October 18 2017 07:31 Rebs wrote:


I didnt tell you what you should do, I said what I would do, I didnt ask you to stop discussing anything.

When you make an observation about a players conduct and how he was fortunate your implication is that the game may be different if he wasnt. Unless you are just saying Casemiro is bad for the sake of saying it, which I dont really see the point off but in that case I apologize for giving the observation to much credit.

Major League Soccer is littered with unique quirks. Among the many is its age. MLS is one of the youngest professional soccer leagues in the world. And its history, therefore, doesn’t protect it from the gut-wrenching news that broke Monday night: Columbus Crew ownership is considering relocating the club to Austin, Texas.

The news hit home like a stake to the heart of a club, a stadium and a soccer city that do have history. The Crew, Mapfre Stadium and Columbus are MLS outliers. They were – they are – MLS originals in more ways than one. The Crew were the league’s first charter member back in 1996. They built the league’s first soccer-specific stadium in 1999. The stadium has hosted every U.S. men’s home World Cup qualifier against Mexico since.

And now, in 2018, the club might perish. Or relocate. For Columbus, the two are one and the same.

Crew owner Anthony Precourt took his fight for a downtown stadium public on Tuesday morning, 12 hours after Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl and others broke the news that Precourt was contemplating a move to Austin. It’s a classic leverage play for a new, partially taxpayer-funded stadium. But the intent also seems somewhat real.

“Despite our investments and efforts, the current course is not sustainable,” Precourt said Tuesday of the club he bought in 2013. “This Club has ambition to be a standard bearer in MLS, therefore we have no choice but to expand and explore all of our options. This includes a possible move to Austin, which is the largest metropolitan area in North America without a major league sports franchise.”

MLS Commissioner Don Garber, quite remarkably, also heaped pressure on the city of Columbus and backed Precourt’s efforts. “Columbus’ situation is particularly concerning,” he said. “Columbus Crew SC is near the bottom of the League in all business metrics and the Club’s stadium is no longer competitive with other venues across MLS. The League is very reluctant to allow teams to relocate, but based on these factors, we support [ownership]’s efforts to explore options outside of Columbus, including Austin, provided they find a suitable stadium location.”

Precourt said Tuesday that it was “premature” to talk about specific locations in Austin, but did say the Austin stadium would be privately funded. Austin’s mayor told the AP Monday night that the club would not receive public funding. The University of Texas said it was aware of the Crew’s interest, and that it had “no opposition to exploring possible collaborative opportunities.” A Columbus Dispatch report said a deal to play games at the university in 2019 was “all but done,” through Precourt said no deal is in place.

As anything other than a leverage play, the potential move is as baffling as it is heartbreaking. It would be a move from the 32nd biggest market in the U.S. to the 39th. From a small market with soccer history to a small market without it – without the one thing that made the Crew attractive and relevant.

It is born of a thirst for something fresh and new, whether that’s in Austin – Precourt noted its “vibrant economy,” its multicultural makeup and its millenials – or in Columbus. Precourt, a Bay Area-based businessman, took over the Crew in July 2013. Later that summer, the club sent a delegation to Kansas City to soak up Sporting KC‘s success. Kansas City, also an MLS original, also in a mid-sized Midwestern market, had grown stale toward the end of last decade. A plush new stadium catalyzed its rebrand and rebirth in 2011. Six years later, it has sold out over 100 consecutive games.

The Crew, meanwhile, sit 20th out of 22 MLS teams in per-game attendance this season. Mapfre Stadium’s location is inconvenient. Its infrastructure is “antiquated,” according to Precourt. He has explored the possibility of a downtown stadium for over a year – three possible sites have been recommended – and clearly sees it as a necessary centerpiece for a Sporting KC-style rebuild.

But it’s easy for Crew fans to see something else: Precourt’s hypocrisy. On the day he was unveiled as majority owner, he spoke of the club’s “tremendous history,” its “culture,” and its “consistency, the familiar, family-like atmosphere.” After all the ceremonial optimism subsided, the Dispatch’s Adam Jardy approached Precourt and asked if there were any clauses in the deal that required him to keep the club in Columbus. According to Jardy, Precourt scoffed at the question.

On October 18 2017 06:36 Rebs wrote:


I would take the point and move on, Real were quite superior. When your goal keeper is your MOM in a draw you probably didnt deserve to win.

On October 18 2017 08:29 nayumi wrote:

Benzema serves as a great target man though. You don't want Ronaldo to fill that role, instead you'd want him to lurk around waiting for chances and then pulling the trigger. The reason Ronaldo has been scoring so many goals is how he rarely positioned himself inside the box in between the two CBs. Instead, he usually made his run from the wings into the box abusing his strength and pace to snatch a goal or two.

Unless you want Ronaldo to play the "dummy" role which in case might as well sell him to China for 2 billion dollars and get someone else :D

On October 18 2017 22:10 sharkie wrote:


If such a player were to exist he would be the undisputed best player in the world....

On October 18 2017 18:18 haitike wrote:


Both goal keepers were the best player of each team. I didn't see neither of the teams clearly superior.