This. So fucking this. I was trying to think of great out-and-out DEFENDERS at the moment, not players like Marcelo or fucking David Luiz, who spend most the time up the field you'd stuggle to class them as a defender. I struggled. I'm sure there are some (John Terry was the best I could come up with), but my mind is blank to them. Any others?

Things are changing so much with the role of defender that I find it hard to believe we'll see players like Maldini, Tony Adams, Vidic as frequent. Sad really, cos whilst it's a thankless job there's something incredible watching great defensive work.

Couldn't agree more. I hate all these 'converted defenders'. I can't speak for leagues outside the Prem but no really outstanding 'pure' defender really springs to mind apart from, as you say, Terry, and this may well be his last season. Style-wise Kompany fits the bill but he's had a very so-so season, same with Cahill. I'm sure there are others but I really can't think of them. Swansea's Ashley Williams?

Outside the Prem you can't ignore Thiago Silva. Haven't seen much of him this season but the few times I have he's been brilliant.I really want to like Chiellini. He ticks every box for me but I don't think he's really matched his potential. Prandelli's tinkering aside, though, I still fetishise Italian defences even if, for the definition of sheer thou-shalt-not-pass brilliance, you probably have to go all the way back to 'that' Milan back four of the 90s:

Maldini-Baresi-Costacurta-Tassotti

bundesliga games start in 20' -- not sure what i'll watch yet. curious about bayern but they face an easy rival. still if the come unraveled like they did vs shakhtar....

dortmund won yesterday-- i didn' see the match but 3-2 vs. last-place stuttgart is definitely not a sign of a clear turnaround. still 3pts is 3pts and they are out of the relegation zone-- for now anyway. they stand at 10th place this morning before everyone else plays.

tuesday they play juve! nerves...

How long before Italian club football reaches the same levels as then?

bayern ahead 2-0 at halftime. too easy!

...

aaaand 6-0 final score. a joke. why the fuck couldn't they do this to shakhtar? they did it to roma... god damn.

maybe it was angela merkel trying to cheer up ukranians who ordered it done, ha ha...

but damn

on good news, badstuber played a full game.

did you see that anti-prem banner the Bayern fans put up last week. Something about 'No to the English Financial Model', attacking the new tv deal. Hilarious. Of course they don't want it. Heaven forbid they might have to compete in a league where they aren't automatically at a massive financial advantage.

And this happened at Crystal Palace

Palace fans complaining is one thing, Bayern fans doing it is something else. Palace fans just want to be treated fairly, Bayern's just fear anything that might rock their top dog status. I completely accept and understand fans of other Bundesliga teams complaining about the impact of our tv deal on their game but not Bayern's. What gives them the right to take the moral high ground when their team functions as a financial monopoly and effectively pillages any team that shows any sign of threatening them, making their league effectively unwatchable in the process. I used to think Man U were bad but, fucking hell, what goes on at the 'Arrogance Arena' really takes the biscuit. Bayern do more to undermine the Bundesliga than anything we could do to it from here. Even Pep can't make them any more likeable, and their fans compain about him cos sometimes his tinkering means they don't win every game 143-0.

Stupid convincing argument. Stop being convincing.

i haven't been following the politics this year but i'll check in on the story.

before i do, i'm thinking maybe it's not necessarily about preserving their dominance but being able to afford stadium tickets.

after all roma is not in the bundesliga and got spanked 7-0. (and the same players did the same thing to brazil). so maybe they're on to something that's not about money (i'm not saying this 100%, i'm saying "maybe").

(paderborn btw is a minnow that was recently promoted.)

when i watched the damned united i also looked at the special features and they had interviews with fans-- they were talking about how they'd run into the players at the pub, etc.

the story that came across those interviews was that TV made fans irrelevant for the team's survival, and priced them out of matches.

right now you can get tickets for any bundesliga game for 10 euros. what happens when they do it the way you guys to it? prices go up 50? 100? 200? can you afford to watch west ham at the stadium on a regular basis?

there's a downside to every story. and if tv rights was the great equalizer then it would follow that before tv the premier league was dominated by one team-- which it wasn't.

then you say the bundesliga is unwatchable because of bayern, as if bayern was the whole of the bundesliga. but wolfsburg-berlin play in a couple of hours and it's guaranteed to be a PACKED stadium.

--

eta:

found this and looks to do with schedules:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/bundesl...6643--sow.html

ps - looks also that there's currently pretty good parity in the distribution of tv money:
http://bundesligafanatic.com/the-bun...ace-in-europe/

^ that article also points to germans being used to free tv not like the hellish cable packages that you guys have to live with. so why would german fans be allies of their own gravediggers?

--

i'm not saying i wouldn't like to see more competition for the top bundesliga spot but i don't know that control of the sport by some behemoth media conglomerate is the solution.

I sympathise with fans who feel they'll be priced out. I certainly don't think the Prem represents a way forward, especially for a country like Germany, which doesn't (for whatever reason) attract much foreign interest and is far more locally fan-focused than England is. I get that. But I can't take Bayern fans seriously when they complain about anything, especially if it's masquerading as some kind of 'for the good of the game' crap. They'll say it's about kick off times. I just don't believe them. What terrifies them is that the Prem will now be in a position to monopolise transfers. If we now want Lewandowski, or Neuer or Lahm we can get them and there's nothing they can do about it. Basically any of the top half of the Prem could poach any player it wants from Bayern. Not every player will want to leave, obviously, but plenty will follow the cash. Basically the Prem's about to do to Bayern what they've been doing to the Bundesliga and they fucking hate it.

A mid table Prem club like West Ham will suddenly be in a position to pay a player like Messi half a million a week! Not saying he'd go to a team like West Ham, obviously, or any Prem team, but you can see how fucked off clubs like Bayern, Barca, Real, etc are about this. English clubs will dominate Europe for years. Kick-off times my arse. Is it good for football? Definitely not. But I can't pretend I'm not loving the prospect of grande dames like Bayern Barca and Real getting a massive dose of the same medicine they've been dishing out for years.

ha ha ha ha-- nice photo

so basically it's the triumph of global capitalism-- turning your local league into a global spectacle and fuck the fans.

of course english papers like the daily mail (i read an artkcle there) make it look like tv is the only way to go-- sky is probably paying for those articles.

with germans, i honestly believe, having read, it's about their kickoff times. fucking germans and their schedules-- crazy. saturday morning is for mowing the lawn-- any other day and it's a crime. when is a german going to mow his fucking lawn if there is a game at the same time?

right now they are protesting friday and sunday games (re:sunday games: i can't watch the wolfsburg game cuz my internet is terrible today due to clouds... yes, clouds). anyway, they call the occasional mid-week games "the english week". they have a month-long vacation. it's fucking nice.

so in order to save their sport they'll have to destroy it, and put a massive paywall around it, so they can compete for qatari audiences or people like me. i don't know.

there are many competing interests here. i get that the prem is the biggest baddest moneymacheen, i do, but how much do you get to actually enjoy the prem vs. a german enjoying theirs? they pay nothing for the tv, they get cheap stadiums, and they might not get cromessi but they get a nice show.

me, i would like to have more bundesliga available on tv so i wouldn't have to suffer this shit streams, but i respect the germans if they wanna keep it real and their own thing.

i have this uncle who had this small factory and was very successful and people wanted him to grow it bigger and he always said no-- because then he wouldn't enjoy his work. there's a lot to say for that sort of mentality.

Yeah the kick-off times are a pisser. Everyone wishes we could go back to the 3pm Saturday ritual but we've quickly gotten used to it. Just as the German fans you mentioned had to get used to no longer being able to have a drink with the players. But anyway, if changes in schedule are all that's standing in the way of the Bundesliga remaining financially competitive then the fans simply need to get over it, but I don't think it is. Football is now a global business and I'm not convinced the globe is really that interested in German football, or even Bayern Munich. Sure, people like us are interested but the tv companies need more than us, and I just don't think there's that big a market for it outside of Germany itself.

It's easy to play the 'keep it local' card when that might actually be the only card you can play.

Meanwhile, I'm just hoping Lewandowski likes jellied eels

in germany it's 330pm not 3, but i hear what you're saying-- bend over for rupert murdoch's unstoppable money cock. you'll get used to it. and the infinite monthly payments.

but i really hope the germans say no. someone has to stop the infection.



anyway, we have one premier league already-- expensive, bloated, hostile to fans--why do we need another? bask in the glory of your media overlords, russian mafiosos, and arab princes if you like; but let the german fans control their game. let the prem take lewandowski if they can lure him away, but...

leave the bundesliga alooooone!


ha ha ha, that guys face.

anyway this is hard to read but worth it


"£55 for chelsea away
9 hours mimimum wage
is this the working man's game?"

ps- i just realized that you thought the germans were complaining about the prem. but they weren't.

the renewal of the bundesliga tv deal is currently in discussion-- they don't want what you have, is all.

it was not an "anti-prem" banner, it was anti-salami-schedule, anti-expensive-tickets, etc.

see here:
http://www.espnfc.com/german-bundesl...th-epl-tv-deal

so it's the fans speaking to their clubs-- not to abramovich-- but some english papers and the fatman in that video are making it look that way. it's misleading.

anyway, check this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/think...scription.html

Yeah, I get all that. The game has alienated the working man for ages here. My ultimate point is that the Bundesliga is in a real dilemma. It can stay as it is and drop back in terms of competitiveness with the rest of Europe, especially England, or it can try to negotiate a global TV deal. The problem with that is I'm not sure it's that marketable a league anyway. So even if it did do a deal I still don't think they'd be generating the kind of money they'd need to compete with the Prem. That raises another question. Does it really matter if a league is competitive in Europe, given it only actually relates to a handful of its clubs? The obsession with Champions League success (which is the driving force behind all of this, when you think about it) has far too much influence on the economics of European football. The reason why I get antsy with Bayern is they of all Bundesliga clubs are obsessed with CL success, mainly because they're now basically too big for their domestic league.

i think bundesliga can easily be as marketable as serie a or la liga who have better tv deals. when you look at those for example their midtable & lower teams are worse than bundesliga. when you look at style of play, bundesliga is faster and has more goals, and they don't waste time with the theatrics that plague the other two--- la liga looks like a street circus with all the somersaults and diving.

here in the us and in a lot of other countries beinsport (al jazeera) carries serie a, la liga and ligue 1. they seem to do well and they have qatari money behind them.

now this is not going to be the kind of money the prem makes, but it could be more than they make now obviously. and isn't germany's population larger and their economy stronger than other european countries? so the domestic market is there already, just not on steroids.

i don't think for the domestic fan in general competitiveness in europe matters that much unless teh europa league starts to matter more. for big teams always though, and for bayern it's the only challenge left right now, but you get the same thing in spain or italy or france with clubs like madrid/barca, juventus, psg, etc.. wasn't man u like that as well, until recently?

the thing with bayern is they didn't get there with narcodollars or by racking up infinite debt, they just worked their asses off and managed their resources conservatively like good bavarians. what they've done is amazing and they deserve their spot, regardless of how that reflects on the league's parity. i don't lke them cannibalizing other german teams, but cannibalization happens anyway.

but yes, the english tv deal puts pressure on everyone, including other british leagues (championship, scottish); and who knows how everyone will cope. some might copy, come might say fuck this-- but everyone is feeling it.

me, i think it's a bubble that will burst. right now it looks amazing but so did real estate in 2006.

one thing we can expect is for the deal to affect for your national team also. i mean already there's very few english players in the top teams of the prem-- how is it going to be in the coming years when money lets you buy anyone from anywhere? forget developing young players when you can just harvest the whole planet.

You might be right in terms Serie A, but then I don't think Serie A is very marketable now either. La Liga can sell itself on Real and Barca plus maybe capitalise on the fact it can be the default European league for the Spanish-speaking world. Bundesliga arguably has less really iconic clubs than the Prem, at least ones that're currently really competitive. Old established teams like Man U, Liverpool and Arsenal speak for themselves but Man C and Chelsea now have a huge presence in Africa thanks to the Prem getting in earlier via tv than anyone else and to high profile Aftican players here. I'm sure there are equivalent players in the Bundesliga (as there obviously are in other leagues) but from what I understand fans there are obsessively loyal and it'd take a lot to shake their loyalties to whichever club they've adopted. One of my work colleagues is from Nigeria. He knows more about Chelsea than any English fan I've ever met, and easily as passionate about them. Read this. It's amazing!

Obviously there's more to the world than Africa but assuming latin America is more likely to go La Liga that really just leaves the US and Asia. Maybe the Bundesliga can make inroads there. I'm not sure how big the Prem is in either. And Europe, obviously, but Europe obviously has its own individual domestic leagues dominating.


Another potential problem is the stylistic similarities between the Prem and the Bundesliga. If people are subscribing to the Prem for a certain style of football, will they also be willing to pay for a slightly less high profile variation on the same thing - especially given the likely influx of even more superstar players in the next few seasons.

^^ that's a crazy anecdote! well apparently bin laden was also an arsenal fan.

the prem is the most popular league worldwide, that goes without saying. all the former british colonies can't hurt. and about similar styles, sure.

but marketability is also an issue of price. if you can get bundesliga for $10/mo. vs. the prem for $100/mo. then that's competition. volkswagen vs. jaguar.

for american cable packages, nbcs, which holds the rights to the prem, is only a top tier thing as i recall. sort of like hbo-- you have to pay oodles. meanwhile, you can get beinsport at a very low priced package-- in the latino packages it comes with the most basic.

if i liked la liga i'd be satisfied with beinsport. as it happens, i latched on to the weirdos-- thanks to fucking espn3 (they used to show bundesliga online). next year bundesliga moves on to fox--also a murdoch property--so we'll see what happens there, how they promote & peddle it-- fox also shows the champions, so there's a synergy there.

blanco-americans tend to follow the prem, but immigrants will follow something else-- mexican league, la liga, etc. goltv used to show la liga and serie a along with bundesliga but beinsport took la liga and serie a from them-- and they have two channels, one in spanish and one in english (i think the spanish one is more popular). so the american demographic is split and contested.

small thing, but i know turkey is bundesliga-crazy-- i've watched their feeds and they call turkish players by their first name (e.g. "ilkay" and not "gundogan"... so they'll go something like "ilkay ilkay ilkay....!" with extra emotion). turkish immigration. etc.

anecdotally, slavo is a la liga fan. just goes to show it's not a prem monopoly everywhere.

bundesliga is not very marketable worldwide because of language and becasue it hasn't been sliced for global consumption. should they choose to do it they'll see some gains, but as you pointed before, the question is-- is it worth it?

if the bundesliga was privately held then there'd be no question owners would be trying to maximize their investment. but since they're 50+1 fan controlled then it becomes a more interesting set of options-- i.e. how much will fans be willing to compromise to keep their league competitive in europe?

Makes sense that Bundesliga is popular in Turkey but ultimately the issue is remaining competitive. If Germany gets bigger/richer, the reality is the Prem is gonna get even bigger/richer still. It's not like we're staying still and everyone is now about to catch up. We're going from massive to enormous. The bottom club in the Prem will now have more money than the top team in the Bundesliga. We can argue about the morality of that but it's happening and no way will the Bundesliga be able to negotiate a tv deal able to compete with the top clubs in the Prem.

Speaking objectively it's a disaster for European football and the only possible solution to it would be the creation of a European super-league consisting of the top teams from all the major countries. That could generate an even bigger TV deal and would at least return some level of parity. It would also let the domestic leagues return to some kind of financial reality. I'm not sure how it would work but, for sure, Murdoch's ultimate wet dream is the creation of a single league with clubs like Bayern, Chelsea, Real, PSG, etc, all playing each other on a weekly basis. He's obviously not that bothered about clubs like West Ham or Hull and simply tolerates them so he can get his hands on the big guys. But if it does happen it'll effectively mean the end of European football as we know it.

from massive to enormous is where i think might be a bubble-- tv needs a return on its investment and we'll have to see if there's any more cash in that cow. there's only so many matches one can watch per day.

btw, the french are also worried and have been whining. platini told them to score more goals, ha ha ha.

ultimately i am not overly concerned. the prem is already bigger/richer than the bundesliga and everyone else, so that will just continue whether the other leagues adapt or no.

even if each english team were crammed with megastars, like a permanent world cup, there is always going to be football outside of it. there are way too many games for anyone to watch as it is, and at some point only rappers and royalty will be able to afford prem tickets. maybe that will be good for the championship when you think about it-- people might say "fuckit" and follow smaller teams they can afford to see.

btw, you need to prep for price increases in your cable package. those 5 billion are coming ultimately from you.

It'll burst eventually but God-knows when. People have been predicting it for years and it just gets bigger. The global audience will eventually exhaust itself or simply say no, but it's the empire all over again, finding new territories to conquer and convert. Once we offered Christianity and rail tracks, now we offer 4-3-3 and Joe Hart. It even comes with its own legalised slave trade (aka transfer market). So yeah, like the last Empire, it'll fall eventually, but it took a long time last time and no doubt the FA are dusting off their khaki shorts as we speak, in readiness for yet another adventure in India.

The Spanish conquistadores are carving out there territories, now we just need to see if France, Belgium and Portugal can get their acts together and re-live their glory days, too.





We're watching you Germany. We certainly don't need any of your silliness again.

ha ha ha ha ha!

basil... that's the best episode ever



--

last i recall you guys ate the dutch who in turn had eaten the portuguese. the germans had... tanganyika.

india is a damn good market, as they become richer.

anyway, best wishes w/ all that.

later today: dortmund vs. juve!!!

Really? That's the game that's got you excited? Surely City/Barcelona would get you wetter?

when i was 15 i'd get wet at the tip. these days the hardness is just dry. well maybe a drop. ha!

but yeah i have no emotional investment in man city or barça. go barça? i'll watch a recording.

what i wanna see live is dortmund return to good form. so far they haven't disappointed in the champions but bundesliga teams have shown how to beat them. i'm a little nervous for them.

The build up to Suarez's second goal was pure Barcelona. Beautiful!

thrilling first half over here. had me eating cheddar popcorn from stress.

juve 2 (tevez, morata) dortmund 1 (reus)

piszcek & pirlo out injured

the ref a bit too lenient w/ the fouls i think

--

barça highlights lookin' pretty!

Better second half for City but Clichy's sending off pretty much killed the game. Neither team looked great at least for the full 90. And I maintain, Kompany's looking like a bit of a liability for City right now, and has done for a while. Never thought I'd say it but I really think it's true.

well, shit, the 2nd half wasn't as good and juve kept their 2-1. could have been more but dortmund got lucky at least twice.

makes me sad to see that dortmund has lost its edge. where they used to be lightning fast on the break now they are slow and ineffectual and extremely vulnerable to their opponents' counters.

i think the original lineup was an error-- mkhitarian and immobile were as ineffectual as ever, and aubameyang was ... where was he? don't know but he's a better target man than immobile.

many times i wished reus had just hogged the ball and scored instead of making passes to useless people.

the words "pupu platter" just came to my mind. word association is truth.

I'll watch a rerun of it later. How did Juve look?

juve looked pretty great generally. pogba great, tevez great, morata good. chiellini/bonucci ruled their area. chiellini made a mistake which allowed reus to pick up the ball and score--but almost scored also near the end. they really did a good job of breaking dortmund down.

pirlo got hurt during the game. i thought they'd suffer more with pereira as his replacement but no.

game could have easily ended 4-1.

Saw the highlights. Dortmund's away goal will make the second leg very edgy for Juve, but yeah, they really should've put the tie way beyond Dortmund's reach. Lovely finish from Reus though, even if it was a result of Chiellini's mistake.

Hard to know what to make of Barca last night. First half they looked immense but City just approached them all wrong. 2nd half City really went at them but I'm not sure if Barca were just protecting their lead at that point.

Either way, Messi was brilliant. If he's this good after his peak, it only goes to show how almost supernatural he was during it. Suarez too was immense. Neymar hardly had a kick though. Zabaleta gave away the pen at the end but until then he did a great job of keeping him out of the game. Probably City's best player over the 90, along with Hart. Kompany though, has to be some big questions asked about him now.




No, definitely. Lots of people love La Liga in the UK too, although obviously in most part as a supplement rather than alternative to the Prem.

I suppose with the Bundesliga, the elephant in the room is that it's German and in large parts of Europe still deeply entrenched German stereotypes don't fit with romantic ideas about football. No problem when it comes to cars; there the stereotype works in its favour. I definitely think it has an image problem when it comes to football, though, as reflecting stereotypes of a slightly passionless, ultra efficient, rather too disciplined culture. (Not saying they're right but stereotypes are stereotypes). Klopp's probably done a lot to overturn that prejudice but even Pep seems unable to put a positive spin on Bayern's image. And Germany's image overall has been rocked by the Eurozone crisis. A lot of younger people who don't really care about old issues concerning the war will be aware of the situation over Greece, which is putting Germany in a bad light%2

i don't know man. those are cartoons. just like throwing bananas at black players. and greece has a long history of alliance with britain-- even though you guys stole the parthenon marbles and renamed them "elgin," there's a strong connection that goes back centuries. you should have given them the money for the bailout.

i'm not trying to argue that any other league is more marketable than the prem or any of that. seriously, that contest has already been won. nobody is debating some other league is going to overtake them in the next decade or two, barring major global turmoil.

what i'm trying to say here is that there are limits to that top dog status. world football is never going to be a monoculture. there will always be options and alternatives. some people will never give 3 shits about european football. maybe the next huge league will come out of china. doesn't matter. gandhi will make his own salt and not everyone will watch the same thing even though a majority will follow a certain thing.

me i'm going to continue following the bundesliga until i'm bored with it. then maybe i'll watch something else-- a grownup MLS, or international waterpolo, or i'll start attending rodeos.

No forget about competition with the Prem, I know that. That's not gonna happen. All I'm saying is the Bundesliga has an image problem in Europe, and part of the reason for that is because Germany has an image problem in Europe. I'm not saying that image is based on facts or has any credibility (quite the contrary) just that it exists. You were saying it should resist selling out to global tv deals. I'm saying I don't think it's a viable option anyway. That's all. But then some pundits are now saying the effect of the deal is being exaggerated. Maybe they're right, in which case it's all irrelevant. So we'll see.

exactly. much is (always) up in the air.

im not gonna be able to watch any live games today, but i hope to read "you guyses" reports until i catch a recording.

So I've thought about this comment today and come to my conclusion.

As we've talked about before truly great defenders are a rarity these days and with that the defense (and it could be said the whole squad) is only as strong as their weakest link. City are pairing up Kompany up with Demichelis and that's a big problem. I honestly don't think Kompany feels like he can truly trust Demichelis to do as good a job as he should be. With that, he's feeling like he's having to cover Demichelis' ground as well as his own, and he's inevitably going to leave space where he's meant to be covering which teams like Barca and co are gonna exploit. Kompany, in my eyes is a great defender, however he's let down by the players around him who he's meant to trust.

Demichelis is an ok player. He's slow as fuck, but when he wants to he can do some good stuff. However, that's not gonna cut it (and hasn't) in the Champions League.

What makes it even worse it City paid what? 30 million? for Mangala? And he's played a handful of games and he's been a liability in those games if I remember rightly (including a kung fu kick against Everton this season). If you can't trust a 30 mil signing to do well as a defender should then they're screwed and never will win the Champions League.

So yeah that's my two pence and re-reading pretty much sums why I'll never be a writer.

ps thanks (demonyo) for that link. if you read what commenter "paul" wrote, i agree with about 98% of what he said.

Kompany's definitely trying to do too much but his judgement seems shot and if you look at at least one of the mistakes he made yesterday it was actually MDM (who I think has got a lot better since Pellegrini arrived) who came in and recovered the situation. Quite honestly, if I was Pellegrini I'd be thinking about starting with DM and Mangala (who I also think is getting better), giving Kompany a break to see if it gets his head straight. It worked for Hart. No way will it happen though.

Since when?!

I agree that resting Kompany would be a good idea. However, relying on Mangala straight away would be a bad thing.

He was decent against Newcastle last week. OK. I take that back, I reckon I would've been decent against Newcastle last week.

Arsenal ... eww ... Booed off again. Hard to say how good Monaco really were. Arsenal just didn't turn up.