i saw the results! cruel fate for celtic. did you watch it?

Hilarious! Thanks a ton.

By the by, that's not Steffi Graff, that's Mary Pierce.

If you saw him last season, MC in general were pretty poor. He's a brilliant player though. In terms of pure technique he might be the best in the Prem. But he's very injury prone so even when he plays, too much of the time he's not 100%. He's been awesome so far though this season.

today's the day!

Haha yeah. Hope Silva has a good game just so you can see what all the fuss is about.

Morrissey had a thing about football hooligans a few years ago so started wearing a West Ham T shirt. He wore a Millwall one sometimes too so the fact he wore both disqualifies him as a fan of either.

i might catch real madrid/sporting in real time and get man city /gladbach online later-- feel free to post spoilers

i'm starting to think sporting might be one of those secret gems i've been missing all along because they're not in a popular league.

If you can see either I'd say the Man City game looks more interesting, especially if you haven't yet seen them under Pep.

i can get the real/sporting live on cable-- for man city i'll have to go online by force and that can be time shifted. i'll definitely watch it though.

cronaldo trying to hurt his old club should have some drama of its own

eta: juve/sevilla looks like a mighty clash

im going bananas with 2 picture-in-picture games plus the guardian live blog to "see" gladbach get creamed (and no silva! blagh)

sporting holding up well and pressuring real madrid to a point. though real missed some chances.

sevilla juve looks similar, with juve dominance but chances on both sides and no goals yet, and some chiellini theatre

my head is gonna explode

oh, gotze scored at last!

TMI. TMI. TMI.

sporting UP 1-0!

any of you who are missing it but can get a replay i HIGHLY recommend the 2nd half of the real / sporting match

this is heart-attack level shit

6 minutes to go + discounts

There's "Sweet And Tender Hooligan" and "We'll Let You Know", sure enough...

That happens. McCartney is both Liverpool and Everton. John Cusack, Cubs and White Sox. Choose one, goddammit!

No Silva but you missed the Sergio Aguero show.

i didn't have that channel. but the sporting-real 2nd half was so dramatic i stopped paying attention to the juve/sevillla on the other side of the screen (which ended 0-0 anyway).

i've got this though:

http://www.foxsoccer2go.com/watch/ty...onchengladbach

the full match is archived on the site so i'll be checking it

Pep left Silva out for Gundogan. Wondering if that's a sign he's being replaced. Be surprised if it is but Gundogan was Pep's buy and there's limited space in that midfield.

gundogan spent a lot of time injured last year or 2 so it looks like a "perfect" replacement ha ha ha ha

I don't know much about Gundogan, but on paper Silva is the very kind of player I'd think Pep would love.

he probably does! that was my joke attempt. since they both need frequent rest.

http://www.transfermarkt.com/ilkay-g.../spieler/53622

Thought you might find this interesting

https://www.theguardian.com/football...erman-football

yes! thank you. just finished reading it.

i indeed witnessed the dortmund boycott last weekend. worst part of it was that dortmund lost ha ha ha.

i mean, i'm cool with increasing parity in the bundesliga, so i see the "other" (more or less) side of the issue, but damn, hoisted with their own petard in a way-- if the point was to boycott them, they should have beat them too

the article fleshes out the issue nicely and i understand it better for having read about it so again thanks

Are you watching Bayern v Atletico?

a little late byt YES!

fuck! atleti scores! but what a great game so far

Celtic are giving Man City a real game. 2-2 so far.

Great game so far.

Atlético defends so well it makes Bayern look... disoriented.

Fuckin Vidal!!!

Top marks for Celtic. I thought Man City would destroy them but they were excellent.

Did you notice any obvious differences between Pep's and Ancelotti's Bayern?

no different in them having possession and being unable to do anything with it, but i'll say this year bayern was the team who played rough while last year i recall they were the ones getting knocked down. even lahm got carded!

this year's bayern also has better central defenders, i think javi martinez did very well overall. but that's not to say that everyone performed well in defense though-- hummels had to come in for boateng who got carded i think and was starting to suck. but now at least there are options.

vidal had a particularly awful day, jeezus johnson, he did nothing then he got a penalty and then a card seconds after griezmann missed the shot. terrible.

everyone looked terrible and nobody could do anything. lewandowski had i think one chance alone (a header), and he blew it.

i don't know how you play against atlético. they're amazing on defense and on the attack quick and decisive. carrasco's goal was a fucking gem-- like-- snooker, right in the hardest pocket.

--

eta: i think the frustration also built up because i thought bayern had better chances in the first half

eta, again: and robben came in and couldn't do shit! not a thing. atleti DOES NOT ALLOW

Atletico really are quality. Haven't seen them much this season but I really do hope they can go all the way this time. But even if they never win the CL, what Simeone's done there already will still go down as amazing.

Bad result for Man City but full credit to Celtic, who could've easily won it.

And pure schadenfreude, watching Big Sam's gloriously humiliating fall from grace.

i haven't had a chance yet to read up on allardyce's one-day reign but i will soon.

atlético is a meat grinder. i really have no idea how they can be beaten. i guess one has to look for examples and watch the videos and try to reproduce some of that stuff.

today, the moment a bayern player would get the ball he'd have 4 atletico players on top. it was fucking relentless. and then you'd think that with such a scheme the defenders would just defend, but no-- filipe luis charging ahead like through his living room, and okay he's a full back, but even godin for fucks sakes-- i'm not talking about set pieces but just charging ahead when he saw an opening like he's beckenbauer. this is a tough tough puzzle for anyone to solve.

Atletico exploit the vogue for possession, so theoretically the best way to counter them is to force possession onto them, to draw their defence out. (According to match stats, Bayern had nearly 70% of possession.) But then possession based teams aren't usually best equipped to sit deep for any sustained period. Although in terms of personnel available, I'd say Bayern are a team that can play both. In fact the speed they have makes them perhaps even better suited to counterattack.

An interesting article I found re Simeone's tactics vs Mourinho's

http://theinsidechannel.com/guide-at...diego-simeone/

bayern under heynckes could change tactics very well. took him 3 years to get there but that's how they won the CL. they excelled at possession and direct football when they wanted.

pep made them magnificent at one thing but totally ruined the flexibility. like indiana jones having to fight that swordsman with his whip because he sold the gun.

i haven't seen enough of ancelotti yet to say where he's going, but this week bayern lacked speed. it didn't help that costa was injured or robben was just coming out of some recovery phase, but i also think that it was mostly atléticos pressure that neutered them.

and that looks like a GREAT article. i was looking for something like that the other day to help me decipher but had zero luck finding. gonna get past the quick browse now and give it a deep read. a big thanks.

I disagree that Bayern lacked versatility under Pep. The times I saw them they often radically (and usually successfully) switched formation multiple times, often in a single game. Barca lacked versatility but no way Bayern. Indeed, if there was one real criticism of what he did in Germany, it was that he changed things up too much

demonrail I was thinking about you yesterday when I was reading an article about the NFL in the UK.. it didn't mention anything about how UK has a lot of Miami Dolphins fans like you explained to me I actually was gonna tweet the author and mention it

By the by, you know how that scene came about? Spielberg and his team had planned the definitive the-whip-is-mightier-than-the-sword choreography, "the ultimate John Woo scene", as he put it. But the day of the shooting Harrison Ford showed up sick with the shits, and told 'em, "Look, it was something I ate, I only have a few minutes to shoot, then I gotta hurry back to the hotel". So one of the crew members nonchalantly said, "Uhhhh, well, why don't you just shoot the guy?" — and everybody fell on the floor laughing...

It always amazes me how much some of the best artistic moments in human experience are entirely impromptu or serendipitous! This scene is a CLASSIC, I always figured it was entirely scripted.

To be fair to that article, I was talking about the 80s, when they definitely had a big cult following here.

So much has happened since then that I'm sure other teams have become more popular with younger fans but guaranteed there's plenty of us left, even if we can't quite squeeze into our #13 Dolphins shirts anymore.

These article seems pretty true to what went on.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/nfl-fans...80s-1415583130

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/sp...heir-he/nntQq/

Also this

http://forum.nfluk.com/archive/index.php/t-65077.html

When I went on holiday to Miami in the 80s, I was more excited about seeing the Orange Bowl than I was the beach.

True BUT your insights explained why the Dolphins still have support there. I mean hey, the Dallas Cowboys haven't won shit in 25 years but they are still considered "America's Team" for their success in the 1990s, same with the San Francisco 49ers and their success in the 1980s.

Until the mid-2000s the Shitsberg Steelers were more or less still living on their successes from the 1970s!!

Reminds me of the CL final when Chelsea beat Bayern