Fuck me, Leicester sent Sampaoli's Sevilla packing? And nineteen days ago (count 'em!) those assholes couldn't pass the ball to a teammate twice in a row? Motherfuckers!

Love Pirlo, but in the realm of free-kick scorers, the greatest I've seen in my lifetime was Siniša Mihajlović (who was a centre-back, by the way). EVERY time his team (I saw him mainly at Lazio) was granted a free kick, even if it wasn't that close to the box, it was basically a penalty shot in disguise. Guy had a fuckin' shotgun in his leg.

Wow, I'd never even heard of him. I just googled him. Yeah he co-holds the Serie A record for free kicks with Pirlo. The 'controversies' section in his Wiki page is fucking massive, regarding his 'extremist and nationalistic political views and affiliations'. Seems like a right nasty piece of work. But yeah, a bit of a dead ball specialist too. So you really do learn something every day.

Bloody 'ell, mate — how young are you?! :)

I don't know where he currently stands on this matter, but (and this may bring out the wrath of Serbian SYG-ers; so be it) every prominent Serbian sportstar I can think of right now (Novak Djokovic, Jelena Janković, etc.) comes out as a ghoulish nationalistic fucker in interviews. With their country's recent history, you'd think they'd manifest some kind of remorse (even if they didn't pull any triggers themselves), but they're way more pissed off about Bill Clinton bombing the FRY in 1999...

oh ha ha i had never heard of the guy either but now i must look

now, we have CL games today don't we? which ones are we missing?

OK, this is getting worrisome. Mihajlović has coached Fiorentina and Milan, among other clubs (not exactly successfully, but that's another story). Didn't you people watch Luis Enrique play? Simeone? Rijkaard? Klinsmann? Frank De Boer? Mancini? Yow!

i was born yesterday

but what should i watch today? atleti/aspirin or monaco/pep city?

I wasn't gonna say that, but... :D


I say the latter.

good call. i haven't seen pep's pepisms in a while and i've been curious and it's about time i look & laugh

even as a bunda-liga fan

By the way, Luis Enrique played for both Real Madrid and Barcelona, five years in each club. He went directly from the goddamn merengues to Catalonia, Figo-in-reverse style. Here's the thing: in Real Madrid he was almost a joke. (Remember those really bad Guti games? Kinda like that). In Barça he was a demon. Nutty footballers, man...

I was thinking more about the fact that the aggregate score is pretty crazy (there's also a two-goal difference in the other game, but El Defensivo Aleti is leading and the match is in Madrid: doesn't sound very enticing). Now, hey, if what you want is Pep in deranged mode, more power to ya!

This reminds me, how about Guardiola himself — did you see him play? No? What the hell is going ON here?!

i never had global fútbol outside the world cup until... 2010

the us doesn't /didn't have great coverage. formerly it was only the spanish channels and mostly mexicoverage.

i've never/rarely had cable tv.

i started watching bundesliga on espn3 (online) after the 2010 world cup (we found it somehow). then it went to cable on goltv (bilingual) then fox finally took it a couple of years ago as goltv collapsed.

fox had the prem on their online service, lost it to nbc but kept bundesliga and champions.

and that's how i watch now. fucksucker2go.com

if guardiola ever played in a world cup, i don't remember him

Yeah, I saw all of those play. It turns out I'd also seen Mihajllovic play after I'd looked him up. I just didn't know his name.

You didn't miss anything. Guardiola only played in the megaboring 1994 World Cup. Spain were shit back then. In fact, they were ALWAYS shit until the 2008 Euro. Cruyff's Barcelona with Pep as his on-the-pitch lieutenant, now that was something...

holy shit 2-0 and monaco ahead on away goals

Told ya (to watch it)! :D Meanwhile, in Spain, NIL-NIL.

monaco brilliant so far. who are these players? holy shit. i didn't know this team at all.

===

oooh yesssss monaco! and pep got PWNED!

never underestimate the joys of schadenfreude

i'm a bad person

And that's how it ended.

Having won the Premiership with Mancini and then with Pellegrini (playing better under "The Engineer", though :)), but having fallen short of turning into Champions League superstars, Guardiola was supposed to make them some kind of... elegant European bulldozer or something. Now, good luck with winning ANYTHING this season.

I feel kind of bad for Pep, though. I like the guy.

So far it hasn't worked out and I have my doubts it ever will, but the optimists will say (not necessarily wrongly) that this was always gonna be a transitional season. What's surprised me is how poorly he's performed in the CL. His problems dealing with the Prem are one thing but he knows the CL inside out and should've done better there.

This season's been a real eye-opener for me. I still like what he stands for (and obviously admire what he's achieved) but this is the first time we've ever seen him really struggle and it's bringing out a side of his personality we (or at least I) hadn't seen before. His passive-aggressive attitude in some post match interviews definitely reveals a paranoid side to his personality that I wouldn't have previously associated him with. It's easy to construct a quite cool/measured persona when everything's going your way. I also think his past rivalry with Mourinho helped him come across as the good-guy to Jose's pantomime villain. Now things aren't so black and white, we're probably seeing a truer reflection of the kind of person he is - at least in terms of how he presents himself to the public, which after all is the only thing we can go on.

i wrote a long post about this the other day but the browser ate it

i'm glad to see him fail not because i'm against his project or his idea of football but rather i see him as a lonely thinker trying to play a game of chess and then ordering people around according to his will.

but playing people like chess pieces is a kind of arrogance. and football, which is a team sport, will ultimately spit out a tyrant. you have to get buy-in from your team and staff and fans not alienate them.

his success was in barcelona which had already molded him and molded the players he used. so his chess was possible there. but then he panicked and left! under pressure.

at bayern he got all the easy victories but not the hard ones. and he broke people. not talking about gotze who now turns out to have a metabolic disorder of the muscles, but the many injuries he blamed the medical staff for, players he mistreated like schweinsteiger, players that didn't like him, people he played out of position.

yes, some players did better with him (neuer because he had to, mueller because he fit well) but others like ribéry were bothered by him, tinkering with lahm in outer space was a sort of "because i can".

so he won the bundesliga while his competition collapsed--okay, but no heroic achievement.

after he left, ribéry called him inexperienced. i think he was right. he had no experience outside of barcelona.

then he thought he was hot shit and was gonna rule the prem the same way. lol.

i'm glad he's being knocked down a peg or two. he might become a better manager after he's been humbled by a defeat he can't run away from. maybe learn to work with people instead of trying to bend them out of shape like a torturer in the spanish inquisition.

(nobody expects the spanish inquisition, etc.)

Atletico Madrid (Spain) v Leicester City (Eng)

Borussia Dortmund (Germany) v Monaco (France)

Bayern Munich (Germany) v Real Madrid (Spain)

Juventus (Italy) v Barcelona (Spain)

That draw. Oh my days, there's potentially some great games there.

holy shit.

i'm getting a preemptive heart attack.

The interesting thing with Pep's experience of the Prem is that he's generally ok against the big teams but struggles against more mid-table ones. Even if he beats them he really has a hard time against them. Apart from all the big money hype, I'd say the Prem is really defined by teams like Stoke or West Brom, who aren't particularly easy on the eye but are very well organised, and will often bully 'better' teams with their sheer doggedness and physicality. Mourinho's initial success here was largely due to him recruiting premium players to play mid-table style football. Something Pep will never do. It's telling that Man City have arguably played better in the Prem this season when Yaya Toure (probably the least Pep-like player in their squad and who he sold from Barcelona after his 1st year in charge) has been involved.

When you think about Pep's club career, it's interesting the amount of players he marginalises who are known for their strength and physicality: Toure, Alexis Sanchez, Zlatan, Schweinsteiger, Ribery. Admittedly Schweinsteiger had massive injury problems but as player types, they represent exactly the kind of player who thrives in the Prem.

A shame that two of the 'big 4' will go out so early but Leicester's tie ... Wow. If they can channel their spirit from last season it's not inconceivable that they could make the semis.

Predictions though

Atletico, Dortmund, Bayern and Barcelona in the semis.

Dream semis:

Atletico vs Bayern
Dortmund vs Barcelona

Final

Bayern vs Barcelona. Barcelona wins. Suarez scores a hat trick before getting sent off. Thus becoming my all-time favourite player.

i don't know enough about atletico or leicester to predict but simeone is simeone and don't both teams play a similar style? if so then atletico should win

i've heard about this real "meltdown" but i shit my pants at the thought of real madrid. they are ALWAYS deadly unless bale's and cronaldo's legs have been amputated. then again, ancelotti might make the difference.

juve barcelona--i have no idea either.

man. i can't predict for shit.

==

about the player preference, yes--but interesting that he brough xabi alonso though, who is no mouse. and costa is a beast as well.

but to be honest i don't know who is in charge of the hires. looks like rummenigge has the final word. he already said renato sanches will replace alonso, ha ha ha.

That's what I was talking about earlier. When Touré and Silva were in charge of City's playmaking (not to mention they're excellent when it's their turn to score), things were more effective, more solid. Squarer? Nah, there was enough movement around them, particularly during Pellegrini's first season in charge.


Sidelining any of them is insane, because in addition to their "strength and physicality", as you correctly call it, they have MAD SKILLS! What better combination can there be?


Dude, Suárez EATS PEOPLE. As David Bowie said in Zoolander, "Disqualified!".

In terms of predictions, we should start The Mighty Football Thread's 2016-2017 UEFACL Quarterfinals-to-Final Pool. And the prize has to be something truly awesome, like... a date with Maggie Gyllenhal. I mean, I'm sorry but Peter Sarsgaard is gay as heck, all due respect/no disrespect. :D

The weirdest thing with Pep is he seems set on finding problems where there aren't any (Aguero?) and seeking solutions to actual problems that only end up creating different ones (Stones? Bravo?). Man City definitely needed tinkering with after the Mancini/Pellegrini era but not the way Pep's going about it.


Completely agree. Didn't want to imply that's all they were.


Have you seen what Chiellini's wearing for the quarter finals?

Looks like it could be the "live action" version of what the villain in the upcoming Justice League film wears on his shoulder.



You probably need more layers to block Suárez's bite, though.

https://www.theguardian.com/football...tical-analysis

This is a good piece. Pretty much what we've been saying but still an interesting read.

How do you feel about Lukaku not renewing his contract?

Plus West Brom 3 - 1 Arsenal

Has to be the end now for Wenger. Has to be.

That fucking fut cunt Raiola is doing his very best to cause a ruckus between Everton and Lukaku and it's pretty annoying. Supposedly the big thing is about the buy-out clause and Raiola doesn't want it to be too high. If big enough teams want him they'll pay through the nose for him. Especially when you consider how good he is right now at 23.

The big question would be where would he go. I suspect if Costa goes, he'll go to Chelsea. Why he'd even contemplate going to Man Utd whilst Mourinho is there is beyond me. Bayern? Barca? Real? I don't see it.

All in all I love the guy and would love for him stay and try and build something with Everton. Don't think he will, like.

You've got me on a roll now!

Did see this on the bbc website before

"Everton have now had more different goalscorers than any other side in the Premier League this season (15)."

Which is mental. I honestly didn't think that'd be true.

Arselol.

Yeah, Wenger is done now. So this is how it ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

Hopefully they'll keep the losing streak on and Everton overtake them!

I was on the fence before but it's impossible to defend his position now. I watched the game and they were laughable. I can't see them finishing top 4 at this rate. There'll be an exodus of players in the summer, although quite honestly, besides Sanchez, who'd want them - at least for the kind of money they think they're worth? Something tells me there's a fair few Arsenal players learning Chinese right now.

But I will miss Wenger when he goes. Difficult to even imagine the Prem without him, and his long coat.

not as thrilling for most, but leipzig was beaten 3-0 by bottom-table werder bremen, and dortmund won friday. so, leipzing remains 2nd but dortmund is closing in, 3pts behind now.

oh yeah

man c vs liverpool just started. should be a good one if you can find a way to watch it. Pep v Klopp n all that.