itt liverpool not winning things; sandbox i love football

Don't agree with having the shite teams from the Champions League joining the competition halfway, that devalues it, then it becomes easier to dismiss it as the You're 'Opeless League

― Derek Pringles (Deep in the Tony Hart land), Thursday, 15 December 2011 12:29 (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

^^ this tbh

Yesterday: Barcelona will not sell David Villa (to Chelsea)
Earlier: Chelsea will not sell Torres 'at any price'
This just in: Villa breaks leg in Japan
Torres: Still shit

Don't agree with having the shite teams from the Champions League joining the competition halfway, that devalues it

Agreed, the parachuting in shite is the absolute worst.

"Well done, you managed to finish above GENK! You're in!"

Yesterday: Barcelona will not sell David Villa (to Chelsea)
Earlier: Chelsea will not sell Torres 'at any price'
This just in: Villa breaks leg in Japan
Torres: Still shit
John Terry is a cunt

that doesn't even rhyme tbh

The truth doesn't have to rhyme

Sad for Villa. Was he still the main frwd for the national team during qualifying?

God forbid they would have to resort to Torres this summer.

Maybe they'll give Soldado a go after 3/4 years in exile.

torres stinking up the bridge
Form so cold it's like a fridge
Barca wouldn't touch the sap
Oh wait- did i just hear a snap
John terry is a cunt

Ruud van Nistelrooy is the 'World Goalgetter of the first decade (2001-2010)', just before Henry and Drogba

If you can't do the time
Don't do the crime
It doesn't have to rhyme
John Terry is a cunt

love Villa, hope he comes back from this as good as ever.

liking this UEFA Cup revival as well, i'm sure it won't be spoiled by British football media behaving as if there's only 1 team in the competition now

Genuinely didn't know Ruud was also an alchemist in his spare time

where did van Nis come in the "World Elbowing Dudes in the Face of the First Decade" comp?

You won't catch me out that easily. we all know there are 2 NV
xp

They retired that trophy with Shearer. No one could compete xpost

You won't catch me out that easily. we all know there are 2 NV

Stoke and Man City

The 'Europa League' is a pile of shite. It's not just the parachuting losers in halfway through, it's also the group format and the pool of teams (i.e. 5th-7th-best instead of 2nd-4th best). Old UEFA Cup & Cup Winner's Cup >>>>>>>>>> Europa League.

Here's Neymar scoring a nice goal in the WCC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ntRlXNVggQ

tbf if the Europa was still 2nd to 4th best clubs then Man U wd still be taking part

I quite fancy watching Santos-Barca. Is it on Sunday?

(xp) next season, yeah, not this one - unless they introduced a rolling-impratical-where-you-are-in-the-table-right-now criterium

:D

Er, 'criterion', sorry (got bike racing on the brain)

Utd are going top on the weekend anyway

It's still the 2nd-4th best (or higher) for most countries, lamenting absence of the CL elite is very much a first world problem.

Yeah, but that wasn't how it used to work - it isn't 'still' 2nd-4th for those countries, because those countries would never have had three places in the old days.

According to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coefficient
the top three leagues (currently England, Spain and Germany) get four CL spots and then three EL spots; then the next three (Italy, France and Portugal) get three of each; then the 7th to 14th leagues (from Russia down to Austria) get two places in the CL and either 3 or 4 in the EL. It's only once you get down to the 16th-best league (Cyprus!*) that the second-placed team goes into the Europa League. Of course it gets muddied by teams getting knocked out of the CL in the qualification stages or group stages and getting booted down a level and also whether cup competitions are used instead of your league placing.

Also according to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Europa_League
in the good old days (1980-1999), outside of the top eight leagues only one or two clubs would have been entered into the UEFA Cup.

*Scotland come 18th, just behind Israel.

* Oof, and that's with Rangers' 2008 Uefa Cup final run due to drop out of the counting shortly.

The elite players are nearly all with the top dozen clubs nowadays too; I'm fine with the competition below Harlem Globetrotters level being a broad church.

In fact it drops out next year (it's the single biggest year for anyone outside the top eight leagues) and without it Scotland drop down to football-failed-state level i.e. Hungary. A lot hinges on Celtic giving Serie A leaders Udinese a damn good thrashing tonight.

without it Scotland drop down to football-failed-state level i.e. Hungary

Failed a long time ago. Hungary are better than Scotland these days, aren't they? National team's a lot better than it was.

They do seem to have revived a bit. Probably roughly on a par these days, though Scotland losing their best player isn't ideal either. We need Hungary and Scotland back almost winning world cups imo.

D. Fletcher might be Scotland's best player but not when he's playing for Scotland

... so I don't think he'll be missed tbh

I guess 'Scotland's best player' rarely plays for Scotland, for various reasons (usually spats)

Man Utd player not playing as well for his country, who'd've thought it?

I guess 'Scotland's best player' rarely plays for Scotland, for various reasons (usually spats)

It's true that Jock Stein didn't look kindly on Charlie Nicholas turning up to training in a pair of these
http://www.partydomain.co.uk/images/P/22650.jpg

http://www.partydomain.co.uk/images/P/22650.jpg

So funny I had to post it twice.

Only left footers in spats

I was 'hoping' that image would be his apocryphal modelling shoot in fetching leather-jacket-and-speedos combo.

Before a recent Copa del Rey game against L'Hospitalet, Guardiola admitted that Villa was struggling. "He has a small problem with the tibia, it is very painful but he puts up with it because he is very strong and very competitive," the Barcelona coach said. That small problem was, it appears, a fissure. Before Spain played England at Wembley Villa admitted: "I feel fine but it is true that I've had some shin pain lately. Not pain that stops me playing but pain that does make me uncomfortable."

On Thursday Guardiola associated Villa's injury with the "huge effort he has been making to play for a number of months with a stress fracture in the tibia". That poses questions about Villa's fitness and the decision to continue playing.

ugh, I've had 3 or 4 tib-fib stress fractures, they're awful & keeping weight off them is about all you can do. Poor handling if he ran on it for months imo.

villa is an awesome player, i think that 'fighting spirit' cliche ppl use about crap defensive midfielders is apt for him

I blame The Hodge for my hatred of Eurovision.

to get back to something that was said upthread, it's not only the english clubs that dgaf about the europa league. French clubs also usually consider it like a useless tournament, often playing second string players. same usually goes for italian teams. the thing that's fucked up is that, at least for french clubs, they play all season aiming for "european spots", then qualify for europa league and throw it away, saying they have to focus on the league in order to qualify for european spots... and on the rare occasion when one of those europa league teams get in the champions league, they say it's impossible for them to copete because they're in the 3rd or 4th pot, hence playing much stronger teams. why they are in those pots is because they have very few uefa points, BECAUSE they didn't take the europa league seriously.

on the other hand, i can also understand their logic. the prize money is shit compared to the CL, they have to play on thursdays (giving them less rest for league games on sat or sun) and lets be honest, the stadiums are half empty because playing against trabzonspor is less attractive than barcelona or man u or any other big CL club.

still, they suck and iwish they'd take that europa league more seriously, it's usually a fun tournament. also, france might lose a CL spot because portugal for ex is slowly but surely catching up on their uefa coefficient. and that's because portuguese clubs play that tournament seriously :last season they had 3 clubs in the europa semis for ex !

jibé, did speculation in the French press about the D. Zagreb match die down entirely? I know you're abroad but maybe you've still been following it.

portuguese clubs play that tournament seriously :last season they had 3 clubs in the europa semis

Absolutely!

lso, france might lose a CL spot because portugal for ex is slowly but surely catching up on their uefa coefficient. and that's because portuguese clubs play that tournament seriously

^this

You'd think some of the managers with lofty ambitions to 'ave a go at the Champions League would realise that a season or two in the embarrassing Europa League could get them a shitload of co-efficient points that would mean they would be very well seeded in those seasons that they achieved Big Club status and would therefore be better placed to 'ave a proper go and reinforce their Big Club status.