Ancelotti sacked from Real Madrid. The poor chap deserved more respect, last season he helped them win almost everything possible.

West ham have got into the europa cup through the back door. Major pain in rhe arse. We don't have anything like a big enough squad.

damn. it's everything or nothing with these people.


don't worry, your tv money is coming

Next time they should consider lubricant

*sigh of relief* yeah I'm really gutted for you guys. Really wanted Everton to get in again ;)

Our season starts early July so apart from anything else we've now got to appoint a new manager and do all our transfer dealings in the space of a few weeks. is any team in the Prem really interested in qualifying for that poxy tournament?

don't know. i know that the dortmund CEO was looking forward to 30 million euros in extra revenue from just joining that poxy tournament-- maybe it's pocket change in england though (i really don't know what kinds of money you work with there).

Maybe it works for dortmund but there was something on the radio last night about how teams have to progress really far before they even start to break even in it. There's just far too many games draining resources of even midsize teams that it invariably impacts on league form. I'd be interested to see how dortmund feel about it after they've been through it, given they're more used to the relatively less draining cl.
More specific to the prem. It doesn't take much for a team used to mudtable to fall into a relegation battle if they're not at 100% and the benefits even of winning the europa are dwarfed by the financial cost of dropping out of the prem. And even if they avoid that, ask any spurs or everton fan if they dont think europa commitments compromise league form and the chance of actually breaking into the cl.

But none of it matters after reading this ...


http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/footba...st-ham-5762637

Oh please god let this happen. PLEASE!!!!!

New reports today that bielsa just re-signed with marseille. Gutted. Looks more and more like we're getting bilic, although I'm now hearing worrying rumours about dimateo. Although I increasingly just wanna know who we're getting. The tension's killing me.

i read "getting bilious"

which would be understandable.

dimatteo just resigned from schalke. they did poorly this year. yes they're the eternal losers but they usually get a good place-- they got 6th this year.

There's something about him I just don't like. He's always come across as being a bit full of himself. I wouldn't mind if he'd really proved himself as a manager but I'm not sure he really has. He can always refer to his cl win but everyone knows that was just a weird turn of events.

Dude.. FIFA arrests... no surprises but still.. wow

the reports i've read say he presented his vision & roadmap to schalke but the club wouldn't budge, so he walked away. sounds about right.

That's how it's been reported here too.

Had he not had some enormous luck in the cl his career would've most likely been in the lower leagues . His record before that cl win was very checkered and he's done nothing of any note since then, as far as I know. Although I'll happily stand corrected on that.

Aye and fingers crossed something will come of it. Coca-Cola (the irony) are already complaining about it. Hopefully they'll pull their sponsorship and the rest follow leading to some change.

And pigs might fly

This

And best of all, Blatter ends up behind bars. And even if he doesn't surely his corrupt, self serving reign must be at an end now ... right? .... right?

It's ok to live in a dream world every now and then *hugs*

but...

but...





CUP FINAL DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11:D :D :D

And BBC are going FA Cup nuts. Top of The Pops 2 atm. Now THAT'S something they need to bring back-The FA Cup song. I can see it now Jack Wilshire trying to rap it up, whilst Wenger stands in the background looking confused *strong French accent* "urrr...I prifer the sounds of...urrr....classical. It is music...playeD urrr...correctly" *Jack bellows in the background* "BANTERRRRRR!!!"

same thing in germany-- dortmund/wolfsburg

kloppo's last day!

starts in 6+ hours

i think i'll have to miss it :(

Cup final day and you're gonna miss it? I'm sorry, but as a representative of Americans following football on here you're letting your country down, you're letting your team down and worst of all you're letting yourself down.

Come on now.

ha ha ha-- i'm not german!

and business is business-- but you make good points.

i'll see what i can fix in the next few hours...

dortmund 1 wolfsburg 1 @ 20ish...

exciting game!

it's on bt sport if you have access

Now that's something that should've been one of Milliband's stone commandments.

german cup ended with wolfsburg flipping the tortilla to win 3-1

it was heartbreaking

the dortund fans were burning flares, it looked amazing

poor dortmund-- they barely made it to a "qualifying round" of the europa league-- not the group stage-- meanig a longer season.

well now klopp can go to liverpool or napoli or wherever

Not sure it's just a dream. This is too big for Blatter to wriggle out of. There'll be plenty of those who've been arrested that'll talk to avoid jail and the golden name to drop is Blatter's. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he ends up in jail for this, and certainly can't see any way he'll be able to continue as FIFA president for much longer. His getting re-elected hasn't made him stronger but only made his position seem all the more absurd.

The FA Cup ended just too one-sided to really be interesting. Arsenal were great but Villa didn't really put up much opposition.

Happy with the result, not cos I'm an Arsenal fan but cos I don't like Sherwood. If Villa had won his ego would've defied gravity.

I have a bad habit of liking/disliking teams based on what I think of their manager. That could be a nightmare if Spurs ever got Bielsa, or Klopp.

As for now, I increasingly think Klopp's either having a season out and just seeing how things pan out, or going to Napoli. I think Liverpool are gonna stick with Rodgers for another season, at least.

Ronaldo on holiday...

http://www.goal.com/en/news/7180/gal...i?ICID=HP_HN_2

He's...gone...he's actually gone...

So what happens now?

new boss-- same as the old boss?

Wa-hey!!!

The thing I've always thought about FIFA is it's not hard to run. All it really needs to do is decide the location of a World Cup every four years and oversee occasional rule changes. Sepp fucked it up by turning it into a quasi-political force designed primarily to ensure his ongoing reign. Easiest way to nip that in the bud for any future wannabe dictator is to limit the term of presidency and end the policy of 1 country 1 vote.

I just hope whoever succeeds him isn't a 'politician' but a real football person, only interested in the good of the game. It probably won't be but, whoever it is, so long as measures are put in place to limit their power it's a massive step forward.

nothing other than someone else will be getting all the kickbacks and bribes and hush money and blood money and shit.

FIFA, and football in much of Europe has been fixed for the organized crime families for decades.....

hell no. they sit on mountains of money. they set up championships all-over. they decide waht is a country and what is not. transfer policies. financial rules. on & on. they are bigger than the UN i reckon.


all reigns are that. havelange ruled for a quarter century and he's the one who brought big sponsorship money into this whole thing. he's 99 and still alive btw.


how would you do it then? rule britannia? i'm not asking this mockingly-- i was reminded in an article the other day of the many recent scandals in european football. who has moral superiority?


institutions are designed to weed those people out. it will just be another gerontocrat mafioso.

They are but they needn't be. Admittedly it involves more than what I said but far less than it got involved with under Blatter.


To a degree, but if you limited the term of presidency you'd do a lot to discourage it.


I'm not talking about moral superiority but if the big European countries feel that FIFA's only interested in using them as a cash cow, then they'll be tempted to break away and do their own thing. The reality is FIFA needs European football far more than European football needs FIFA.


Tend to agree but, again, limiting the term of presidency will only help.

^^ oh yeah, i totally agree with term limits. sorry i forgot to mention that.

same thing should be with national federations-- where many corrupt leaders use the same system of patronage with small clubs as blatter has used with small countries to retain their grip on power.

as for uefa--yes, they have the greatest financial power, but if they were to dominate fifa then chances are they'd only use it to... ensure their ongoing reign! i really don't know what to suggest here. seems like it's fucked in any direction.

ps- maybe each confederation should get as many votes as they get teams into the world cup, ha ha ha.

no, for serious.

I don't necessarily disagree about the votes-per-World Cup qualifiers idea, or something along those lines, anyway.

I don't pretend to have the answers to all this. Any institution that governs something as huge financially as football will invite corruption, so It'd be naive to think it can ever be gotten rid of entirely. I do think, though, that a few common sense changes at the level of infrastructure would help prevent it from thriving in the way that it did under Blatter.

And in other news Benitez is the new Real Madrid boss. Be interesting to see what he does with Bale et al.

im more curious about who'll be filling in for him @ napoli

o wait! he's taking a break after all

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/32963594

he can now go live in brooklyn and call pep's weed dealer, come up with a new take on the 4-2-4

but yeah, i feel bale might have been wasted this past year-- if you'd care to explain how, it would be great