2020 - 2021 Football / Calcio / Futbol / Fußball Thread
 

So the new season is underway, thanks to prudent management by government officials and clubs in Europe. Bundesliga is even allowing some spectators to return.

Thiago joins LFC. This is interesting, as he add a bit of creativity and flair somewhat lacking in LFC, not to mention a great work rate. Simply can't expect fullbacks to create all the time, and this gives LFC the ability to pry open tough defenses, as well as additional defensive nous. Also, there's a tasty match between Chelsea and LFC this weekend.

Bale to return to White Hart Lane. Best quip i've read so far:
And last but not least, Higuian sets sail for the retirement league that is the MLS...

Ive been missing sports a lot during corona. And watching fotball with no audience in the stands is special and can be somewhat lackluster imo. I evcen watch it with added crowd noice when available.

Can a 39 year old Zlatan carry Milan to a UCL spot or more?
Can United reposition themselves as a PL power house?
Can Barcelona get some wind in its sails once again?
Can juve win anything but the Serie A once again?
Can anyone beat the mighty germans?

Im really looking forward to this season very much.

All good points. I think Zlatan has a good chance of getting Milan in the top-4.

And ditto to eagerly anticipating this season. I hope it gets to unwound and complete in an orderly fashion.

Thiago to LFC.

@ the Teutonic delegation here, while it's good to see fans back, holy s***, they aren't wearing masks!!!

We know that singing and chanting is quite effective at transmission, and there really are no supporters more vocal than Bundesliga supporters. Great in normal times, probably okay when wearing masks, but masks off? :eek::eek::eek:

I didn't catch the Bayern v Schalke match, but I hope the Bavarian fans were more responsible than the Dortmund fans. This really doesn't look good, at all.

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Otoh, Espn provides pretty decent coverage. They were hyping up Gio Reyna before the match, and the lad vindicated all that plaudit. Speaking of youth, that BvB squad has 4 players 20 or younger (Bellingham, Reyna, Sancho, and Haaland), though two of those already have significant amount of experience. I hope they can upset the apple cart and hegemony of Bayern, but I think they may all just be a tad young...

There were no Bavarian supporters in the arena. as Munich passed the threshold of 50 new infections per 100000. Most Ultra groups, who are responsible for 90% of the singing happening, have declared to not attend any matches before full stadiums are allowed again, so that should not be an issue. In fact the only issue so far were the management teams of both Schalke and Bayern, who chose to skip distancing and picked seats right next to each other in the empty stadium. Health Minister was not amused.

Oh by the way, Bayern proved Schalke are on Barcelona level by also giving them eight.

In light of that, those BvB fans really disappointed. I mean, c'mon, some of the biggest outbreak clusters were in the Ruhr/Rhine valley (including the meat processing plant ran by one of Schalke's board members). So face-palming inducing...

:)

Btw, how about that West Brom/Arsenal reject? Such a marksman, with lots of longer range shots.

Also, three former Schalke players on the Bayern squad. The academy seems alright, they upper management, otoh, don't seem too bright.

There's also the semi-Cruijff turn Lewandowski pulled to set-up Müller's goal. All around exhibition match

Interesting. Thiago starts the second half for Liverpool. He hasn't even been on the team for a full weekend yet.

Gnabry? I never thought he would become that good, but he's on fire and the sky seems to be the limit for him. I like what I see. Oh and there were 4 Schalke players on our team, you missed Nübel who sat next to Ullreich on the bench. I half expected to see him subbed in for a field player and see Neuer playing DM :D
Lewa was quite shyte all match but that Rabona was something else :)

Oh boy, anything BvB could do, Bayern could do worse, it seems!

Did not see that one coming.

From what I remember, Arsenal/Arsene wanted to keep him, but he wanted more first team assurances. And probably a better contract. I thought he was exciting, I definitely wasn't expecting him to be this impressive and seemingly consistent.

Diego Costa and Luis Suarez, managed by Diego Simeone. Far too early to tell if they will be any good, but I expect them to serve up some drama this year. :banana:

shytehousery trifecta

btw, how are you following your Scousers this year? Last season, I was able to watch most of LFC matches and the matches between the "Big Six" on NBCSN. NBC has shunted quite a bit of that to Peacock, so it would appear I would need both.

Would you or anyone else know of a cheap-ish option of obtaining NBCSN? I was under the impression that all of the matches would be on Peacock, but was miffed not to be able to see Leicester put five past Pep

I signed up for Peacock, and it is cheap, but:

• No FireTV app, and can't stream via browser
• I also thought they'd have all EPL matches

We have become very spoilt in recent years, i've seen the team show up half drunk in matches after huge wins and lose gloriously 5-2 or so, and no one was bothered :)
They aren't super human and the thin squad doesn't help. Losing Thiago also may hurt more than some thought, with Martinez gone and possibly Cuisance too (leeds show interest and made an offer) there is a dire need for at least 2 midfielders. Seem to have lost the battle over Dest too. Salihamidzic has his work cut out for him until transfer deadline, that's for sure. Also as talented as he is, the gap between Zirkzee (remember the name!) and Lewa may be too big. Currently, only CB are available in sufficient depth, we only have 3 wingers plus Musiala, all other positions could only be filled by major shifting around positions which doesn't help the playstyle (Müller to CF or winger, Alaba to LB or DM, Kimmich to RB, Davies to winger etc.)

The schedule is packed up to the not-happening winter break, having the smallest squad in the league is a no-no. Signal from management is they see the problem though. Getting Alaba to extend his contract will be prio 1,cant lose him atm.

also, this is news to me:

Sergino Dest to Barça, apparently?

Absolutely wild. The last thing that leaky Barça defense needs is a callow speedster whose defending may not be up to par. Having said that, I want to see him do well, but that's some big expectations.

Also, to recap, the USMNT now has players getting significant minutes at the following clubs:
-Chelsea,
-RB Leipzig,
-BVB 09,
-Barça, and
-Juve.

If it still can't manage to slap El Tri the next times the two teams meet...

you forgot Chris Richards CB/RB Dallas/FC Bayern, did an excellent job securing the 3rd league title for Bayern II last season, well on Flicks (and Berhalters) radar. Had his 1st team debut against Freiburg this summer.

Let's hope that he succeeds


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In other news, there are some rather competitive groups for Champion's League, specifically, Groups D and H.

For Group D: Liverpool, Ajax, and Atalanta;
For Group H: PSG, Man U, and RB Leipzig.

Both Atalanta and Leipzig should be in Pot 2. Zenit being in Pot 1 is kind of a joke...

Champions League Draw - some interesting matchups

GROUP A
Bayern
Atlético
Salzburg
Lokomotiv Moskva

GROUP B
Real Madrid
Shakhtar Donetsk
Internazionale
Mönchengladbach

GROUP C
Porto
Man. City
Olympiacos
Marseille

GROUP D
Liverpool
Ajax
Atalanta
Midtjylland

GROUP E
Sevilla
Chelsea
Krasnodar
Rennes

GROUP F
Zenit
Dortmund
Lazio
Club Brugge

GROUP G
Juventus
Barcelona
Dynamo Kyiv
Ferencváros

GROUP H
PSG
Man. United
Leipzig
İstanbul Başakşehir

Group B is shaping up to be a difficult one as well.

As always, Man City gets an easy draw...

As do Pool, Chelsea, even Barca..

CR7 vs Messi should be good.

First time they go head-to-head in the CL in almost a decade.

CR7 hasn't lost much, I'm not so sure about Messi though

Damn, Everton looks good. Should make for an interesting Merseyside Derby.

Hoping that the Covid cases at LFC are isolated events. Mane and Thiago both out...

Oh boy, didn't expect that from Liverpool. I really hope no one else on that squad is sick...

And here is how one differentiates admirers of the coach from actual fans of the team. The former such as myself, can simply turn it off. The latter has to go through what must feel like skin being flayed...

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Otoh, congrats THFC. Emphatic win. Jose knows a thing or two about getting a severe beating playing against Spur at Old Trafford. In his words, No Respect shown today toward Man U.

1-6
2-7

football. bloody hell

I know, right?

That was a royal pasting on LFC...

PS. Noticed that you are in Rotterdam. Feijenoord or Sparta or perhaps none of the above? I really wish I could have caught an Ajax match when we were in de Nederlands last year.

Glad to see my Bayern aren't the only ones to struggle lol, and we got silverware overload as an excuse :D

BTW last minute signings of Douglas Costa (interesting, he didn't leave on the best of terms), Choupo-Molting Roca from Sporting and Sarr from Marseille. The first two are on loan and make sense, their main job will be to give first team players a rest. Sarr and Roca are players for the future.

Talk about a rigged Serie-A

Two Napoli players test positive. Local health authority states that team shouldn't ravel (for match vs Juve). Napolis is forced for forfeit the match and take a 1-point deduction

Now two players on Juve test positive. What sort of signal does Serie-A's bass-ackward message send? I'd imagine Juve will play the match as scheduled, consequences be damned...

https://www.theguardian.com/football...do-coronavirus

Partey Time, Its Thomas Partey time:banana::banana:

Despite your lousy owner (no surprise there, someone who married into Wal-Mart fortune), I gotta say that things look bright for the Gunners. Good coach with an excellent crop of youngsters, including Marlo Stansfield's doppelganger. The former is a dead-eyed assassin; the latter is a dead-eyed striker on the field.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EcGZ3R4X...g&name=360x360
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EcGZ3fdX...jpg&name=small

Also, RIP Gunnarsaurus...

Not sure i rate Nketiah, but time will tell. i do like the additional spine with Partey and Gabriel...

Gabriel is the best central defender we have had in some time, and hes young and just learning, so thats good. Partey is the workhorse in the middle who we have missed for so long. i think his opresense will allow willian a bit more freedom and let pepe play as an outside midfielder. id put auba up top and saka on the left, play ceballos and partey in the central role and now you have 2 CMs who work hard, get in tackles, and play optimistic balls in the slots. but coach will continue to use auba out wide for some reason, even though hes more deadly in the middle.

Gunners
 

Agree that I'm not sold on Nketiah just yet. Doesn't add anything to buildup or passing. He's young.

Slightly disagree Auba is deadly from the left and even when he lines up centrally drifts left anyway. But if it gets Saka in I'm for it as he seems to be one who can carry the ball between the lines something the Gunners have been missing for awhile ( how I would love a young healthy Cazorla)

I think he might move to a midfield three soon enough and we could try Ceballos or Saka as a higher midfield option.

well that was some shyte officiating

Pickford scissor-kicked Van Dijk, injuring the latter in the process. Not even a card, b/c VVD was off-side...

And then the goal ridiculously chalked off by VAR.

Last but not least, Richarlison is quite a snide player. Studs-up challenge today, eight yellow cards last year, and another straight red two years ago...

This is interesting, Shaktar put three past Real before the latter responded

Shambolic performance from Man U there. Swashbuckling in the Champions League, yet quite meek playing at home against Arsenal.

Anyone catch the USMNT performance yesterday?

For a moment, they looked the part of an attack-minded first-tier European team, overloading the flanks, sending in pinpoint crosses, etc. Also doesn't hurt that the left back is an Ajax academy graduate and currently plays for Barça.

Who knows, maybe for once the MNT will beat El Tri at the Estadio Azeteca.

In other news, Germany spectacularly failed its test tonight: in the form of an unexpectedly stern examination meted out by inquisitors from Spain.

8/15/2012 - US beats Mex at Azteca

Bye bye Jogi