Let's Go Packers!

did you have it in MOTD or whatever the day after?

and how can it be crap-o-rama when you have klopp vs mourinho???

i don't know about resistance. i haven't heard of any resistance against the NFL scheduling games in London. well, maybe there is but it's not a big scandal-- if so it would make the news. and it's natural to try to reach a global audience. i know that bayern does regular exhibition games in china right now. they also go to the gulf states. who knows what will happen in a decade or two?

i gotta work but i'll look for video of pep ASAP. "dominates possession but..." sounds so familiar ha ha ha.

problem with pep "turning things around" is that man city wasn't in bad shape when he took it over, was it? he's made them worse.

just hey can he please mail back debruyne to wolfsburg? they need him so badly ha ha ha. poor wolfsburg!

Yeah it was on, but I had to be up at 5:30 the next morning so didn't stay up for.

That's EXACTLY what I thought when they played Anfield in October. It turned out to be terrible match, which is why I gave this one a miss.

Exhibition games are something else entirely. Nobody here takes any notice of them. But a Prem game played in the USA or China would be met with major protests from fans, regardless of how they do things in the NFL. Not saying it won't happen - in fact I think eventually it will - but they tried it before and it failed, mainly because of resistance from fans:

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/20/fo...eague-chelsea/

oh im gonna read that

but before i read it let me say-- who cares about the fans when the main money comes from global TV? not today, but tomorrow or next decade. it will be so. bucky fuller has convinced me ha ha ha.

yeah the nfl is increasing london games. by having morning games (in the us, that's english nights) they compete w/ european sockarr which is taking over monings, actually, here. quite the little puzzle . schedule guerrillas.

the other day i caught liverpool-man u cuz i was at my in-laws and they had it on. yep. on mainstream tv. then they changed it to the same game on the spanish channel (they dont speak spanish) because "it sounds more animated" ha ha ha. yep. 'merica is catching premier fever.

Money will win but, for that very reason, I think the idea of a globalised Prem has actually passed, just because I think the real agenda now is the elite European teams banding together and forming their own breakaway league. How it'll work practically is still up for debate but I'm convinced it'll happen sooner rather than later, in some form or another . And that really will go global.

haa haa haaa

haaa haa haaa haaaa

Spurs v Man City was epic

And today Mr. Panenka did it again, at the 97th minute... :D

So how much do West Ham fans HATE playing against City?

holy shit, st. antonio conte has chelsea 10pts ahead of everybody else on the prem table

can this be? it is!

i've always admired his work. damn, i wish i could seeeeeee....

They've been great to watch, they really have.

man, last time laughing at pep's linkedin page distracted me from this

and yeah, i get it.

a transnational league, meaning a true european league, would be fantastic.

i'd kill to watch that. not sure how it would work. not sure the national leagues would allow it. but i'm sure i'd kill.

like, i'm very interested in seeing chelsea under conte. im not interested in whoever else is left below liverpool-- like, what--aston vila, the potters of some place i can't remember, i don't care. like i'm sure people globally wanna see bayern and dortmund and real madrid and barcelona but not real betis or stuttgart or QPR and so forth. that would be EPIC. like a permanent world cup, but better played, home and away, year round, holy shit yes i would kill for that week in & week out.

not sure what it would do to the teams left behind but i'm a fat greedy consumer wth no conscience

eh, i'd prolly watch them on occasion ha ha ha ha

i might finally break down & get cable if that continues

Aw man, it's almost funny now. We're like Pep's wet dream of a team; playing in exactly the right way for his teams to just demolish. We even manage to make his defence look decent, which might be an even bigger achievement than simply letting their attackers score apparently at will.

Mind you, Pep does have Jesus on his side ...

They play Arsenal midday tomorrow. Should be great.

Also hearing rumours that Roberto Mancini's being lined up to replace Bilic. Hmmm.

[mancini was at schalke recently and did no good] <-- edit: not mancini but a different italian roberto: DIMATTEO. sorry guys. this was pre-coffee.

ah the chelsea arsenal already happened! looks like a nice result....

speaking of results, schalke rose up to TIE bayern munich just now at allianz arena. ancelotti's new freedom doesn't seem to be kicking into gear-- there's a lack of team cohesion.

anyway, dortmund-leipzig play in 1 hour (or less) and it should be interesting. leipzig is only 4 pts behind bayern right now so there's competition for the #1 spot at the table (yes, they're the hated red bull team). dortmund at the same time needs to get out of mid-table where they've been stuck all season in spite of their great talents. they're 7th right now, with 31pts vs. bayern's 46! OUCH. they're still a nice team to watch though. [eta: dortmund could leap to 3rd or 4th if they win today though]

What a mental day in the Premier League. Honestly 'symbols' the relegation battle is whats making things exciting in this league.

oh, what happened? who did what to whom?

anyway i was coming in to say dortmund just beat the red bull team by a thin 1-0 in an exciting game. dortmund has now leaped to 3rd place, which is more fitting than their previous 7th.

i say a thin 1-0 because dortmund missed a bunch of chances to score and at the last-last minute the red bullshits had their tying goal annulled do to offside.

it was all very entertaining overall. plus i ate fried spam & washed it down with beer.

little pulisic is turning out to be really great. bruce arena should be very happy with this.

Today was fantastic: West Ham won AND I captained Lukaku in my Fantasy Football team!!!

The Prem's fascinating top and bottom. It looks like Chelsea have won it but I've no idea who'll get the remaining CL spots. And yeah, all bets are off now in the relegation battle.

Liverpool have just completely collapsed! Are the pundits right? Have they just totally burnt out? Is Klopp gonna get sacked? Seemed unthinkable a month ago but ...

Klopp gets too easy a ride. If this was Rodgers he'd be getting calls for the sack now. Now if they could keep it up for a bit longer, whilst everton keep the winning streak up then I'd be happy.

So what are your predictions for the top 4 and bottom 4?

As for the Bundesliga, I get the games on BT Sport never get round to watching it. Should do especially given how open this season is.

gonna go read about kloppo

btw if you get a dortmund match be sure not to miss it. such a fun team to watch! their counterattacks today were awesome. their winning goal was so pretty--dembélé faster than light a cross to aubameyangs header ooooou mann
nnnn

Top 4: 1. Chelsea, then ... fuck knows. All the other contenders seem to have gone off the boil. Although I can see MU sneaking in behind everyone's back. Not that they're that impressive either.

Bottom 4: Can't do 4 but I'd say Sunderland are Hull are doomed, and would LOVE to see Palace go down

I dunno, man, Hull seem to be sorting themselves out and still with enough time to get some points in. Same with the Everton B team/Sunderland too.

If Leicester lose today they could easily could sucked in.

I think everyone up to and including Middlesborough is at risk. Palace are really in it, and have you seen their run in from April? Horrible!

Hull and Sunderland have much better run ins but I still think they'll struggle. I can see Leicester just avoiding it, but only just.

It really is wide open down there

That's what she said

Agreed though. And now if the rest of the teams above Everton can carry on buggering things up it'd make getting into Europe a decent prospect.

Jesus fucking Gabriel Jesus buggering up my plans already.

Do you really want it, though? Unless you actually win the thing it's a curse!

And yeah, Jesus! He's got to be Pep's 1st choice now. And Chelsea are after Aguero - obviously thinking Costa will be gone in the summer.

Good news for you if that's true, given it'll probably mean Lukaku stays put.

Honestly, yes. Firstly, it'd make holding onto Lukaku a lil bit easier. Secondly, if Everton do get in they should put everything into winning it. I think after summer there'd be more depth to Everton's squad to be able to try and win it. Too many Premier League teams see it as a curse and a hindrance even though they'll never win the league anyway. Tottenham being my main example.

Push to win it and I think it'd help Everton build on it.

The one thing in favour of Everton is you're never really in a relegation battle, so can afford to emphasise the EL without seriously risking your Prem status. At the same time you're not serious title contenders so don't have to fear compromising that either. You're pretty much unique in the league in terms of that.

the tv heads didn't say a word about hooliganism last weekend, but here is the story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38802113

Yeah, there was a pretty interesting piece about it in The Guardian. Football's changing more and more and no amount of protesting by them will change anything.

i don't know... the germans are pretty good at this shit

almighty walmart tried opening there... and failed

i imagine if they start a national boycott of the beverage the company might relent and open up the membership. i'm sure many citizens of leipzing and environs would like to join.

--

eta: good writeup from the economist. obviously they're pro-market:

http://www.economist.com/news/europe...es-you-wingers

That would be the best solution to all this. Personally I think 'fan ownership' is a bit of a brand, that sounds good but I doubt really means much in the actual, practical running of clubs. But if it helps legitimise Leipzig then they should adopt it, just to keep the peace. From a purely sporting point, Leipzig have been the most exciting thing to happen to that league in years, posing a genuine threat to its elite - not just in terms of performance but by being in a financial position where their best players won't be so easily hoovered up by the likes of Bayern.

holy shit bottom of the table darmstadt just punked dortmund, 2-1, o man!

--

bayern struggled vs ingolstadt for 89 minutes and them blam, put 2 goals in.

-

so, demonyo, i disagree w/ leipzig being "the most excting thing in years"

in that scale ("years"), dortmund's rise to glory was truly awesome cuz it wasn't a flash in the pan. they had at least 3 good years where they were dominant. and yes then they somehow ended up at the bottom of the table but then came back. now they're doing just okay, but i could see them going up again. it's a good team.

after dortmund's klopp era, wolfsburg was really great till they got pilfered (from the outside, no the inside). debruyne went to man city, bas dost to sevilla<-- no, to sporting, draxler to psg, and blam, adios. ok, schurrle to dortmund too but just another stripe on the tiger.

today leipzig just got knocked 3-0 by hamburg btw. though they're still in a good place on the table.

By exciting I meant that Leipzig seem to have the financial resources (potentially at least) to build long-term - not just offering wages that'll make it harder for the likes of Bayern, et al, to pinch their best players but they may eventually even be in a position to out bid them for new players. It'll all depend on how much Red Bull wants to invest but I'm sure they have the money to really shake that league up more than Dortmund could.

my naivete confuses this thread with the American football thread. erased a long stupid paragraph on the Super Bowl and realized Suchfriends doesn't post here nomore and it's out of my no pun intended.... league.

Soccer. nope never watch it unless im eating Mexican. it's exciting in a cultural setting with fans but, clueless about it.

that's i think a separate issue from the membership, and has more to do with uefa rules, which i really don't understand.

all german clubs have sponsors ranging from gazprom to tmobile to volkswagen, and there's plenty of money to thow around. funny enough wolfsburg started to decline after the diesel emissions scandal, not sure if that was related.

here's a list of the sponsors and money they pay and red bull isnt anyhwere near the top

http://www.ispo.com/en/companies/id_...-revenues.html

now i know the club has a lot more money than that but i dont understand how it gets funneled to it and how it works with uefa rules (i dont know those rules)

anyway, the complaints as i understand are not about the money per se but have more to do with how the club is run as a subsidiary of a beverage company for marketing purposes rather than a club proper with member-owners at its core.

Well on that level there's really no significant differences between them and Bayer Leverkusen, so why the focus of hatred towards RB Leipzig? I'd say rival fans' real concern is that Red Bull have shown before (in Formula 1) that they're not just able to spend the kinds of money it takes to really upset the status quo, but willing. The same happened in the Prem when Abramovich took over Chelsea. They were the most hated club in the country but ultimately more because of the threat that take-over posed to the traditional order of things (and Mourinho). If Leipzig get into the CL and really start to make waves I think it's only a matter of time before rival fans start to question their own set-up to ensure their club remains competitive. The only club in Germany that seems able to keep the system as-is and continue to thrive long term is Bayern.