hahaha.. sadly its true!! I only follow International Futbol with any sense of passion, partly because I've bought more into it and now the narratives, history, and teams better. Honestly I get completely lost in league futbol

Real-Barcelona tomorrow, and a possible post-ban debut for the man himself.

The twitter feed is hilarious.

Here's Michael Cox's formation pic but they definitely weren't sticking to it

TONIGHT!!!!! I'ma wondering whether they're gonna start with Suarez or have him come on later in the game. And is Ramos definitely playing tonight? Cos Pepe is gonna need that calming influence tonight.

Oh and side note, I didn't realise Di Matteo has gone to manage Schalke now.

WEST HAM!

dortmund just dropped to #15 on the bundesliga table after losing 1-0 to hannover.

don't ask… :(

hot damn what a way to start a clásico!

==

[95 minutes later] aside from that first goal, barcelona looked like shit, stiff & slow. terrible tactics vs a stronger, faster, more skilled real madrid. e.g.: countless crosses from dani alves? pointless. pedro in for suárez? lol (not that suarez had the legs, but pedro was worse!). why was mascherano a centerback? marcelo immense. benzema great. what a spanking, could have been 6-1.

Marcelo is one of them players for me who is great going forward, but defence? Nah. Suarez (Messi too tbh) was definitely off tonight and needed to be subbed earlier if anything. He'll be back on form soon enough though.

Isco though, now there's a player who's gonna get better and better.

It's wasn't a classic by any stretch of the imagination, but a result all the same.

MOYES OUT! Another loss? What's happened with them?

w/ dortmund it's a long story but here is a fair summary:

http://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2014/...l-score-result

will have to add to that, they've been missing *a lot* of chances the last few weeks. so it's not like they are without danger-- they just have failed to convert over & over & over until they run out of chances.

--

marcelo maybe doesn't defend but the way he motored ahead today was a holy terror against barcelona.

i think part of the problem was suarez positioning on the wing w/ messi as striker whereas messi plays better behind the striker and suarez more in the center-- just before he was subbed out he was getting dangerous in the middle. his problem was he didn't track back. but pedro a zero.

ps- and barca's midfield old and weak.

Oh fucking hell yes!

i just read… congrats!

Great result. Annoying that the pundits are only interested in talking about what's gone wrong at MC, ignoring that WH played excellently today, and have been for a couple of months now. Whether it lasts is another matter and Sam will have a big problem when Carroll's fit, given how well we're doing without him.

Fair play to City though, early contender for goal of the season?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17nm3AmEgxk

Fuck suarez

Agreed. Neither are pure strikers. Messi does most damage from further back which is how it was for Suarez at Liverpool, whose main striker was Sturridge. Messi suits coming in from the left, Suarez from the right, but Suarez's best position is the one best suited to Neymar, too.

I <3 Eto'o. Still a class player.

And I hate Danny Ings for robbing Jagielka of a clean sheet bonus

today bayern was a lot more static vs. monchengladbach than it was vs. roma.

weird 3-4-3 that failed to score. lewandowski out in the woods. ribery was subbed in for muller on the right. ribery on the right is like 1/2 of a regular ribery. rafinha as a wingback.

result was 0-0 and gladbach i think had more & clearer chances-- chances that someone like cronaldo wouldn't let go to waste (i'm looking @ CL prospects here). benatia even was spared a penalty at the last few minutes--gladbach could have won. guardiolo was begging for the time to end and even grabbed the 4th ref (a woman) while arguing. lucky he didn't get carded, the fucking bastard-- he think he can lay hands on the ref cuz she's a woman (she's a cop though, she'd kick his ass).

WHAT A DIFFERENCE ROBBEN MAKES.

also, fucking rafinha, he gets on my last nut. he's like an emergency spare tire of last resort, not a starter for bayern.

Didn't see the game but it looks like Bayern are gonna be so dominant in the Bundesliga they could end up treating league games almost like training sessions, so we might only see the real thing in CL games.

yes. monchengladbach is in 2nd place though (4 points behind) so this was no toy team to fuck with--a lesser goalkeeper might have very well lost the match. guardiola looked really desperate at the end. but as it goes, neuer is 658 minutes without getting scored on, the freak.

heard dat! Robben is probably my favorite player in the world, the guy creates his own spacing like a jedi or the matrix, and the most baffling aspect is that defenses know its coming and STILL can't stop him!

that was superfunny to read simply because it's true-- just the other day looking at one of his goals vs. roma in slow motion he's shown going past ashley cole, legendary english defender, and the commentators say, someone with ashley cole's experience HAS TO know what he's going to do, and still he does it. (what he does is cut to the left and shoot. always always always.) it's predictable but it's just that he's too fast i think--he probably DOES bend space and time a bit. or maybe he's a part-rooster mutant.

23 player shortlist for this year's Ballon d'or:

Gareth Bale (Real Madrid)
Karim Benzema (Real Madrid)
Diego Costa (Atlético Madrid/Chelsea)
Thibaut Courtois (Atlético Madrid/Chelsea)
Ángel Di María (Real Madrid/Manchester United)
Mario Götze (Bayern Munich)
Eden Hazard (Chelsea)
Zlatan Ibrahimovic (PSG)
Andrés Iniesta (Barcelona)
Toni Kroos (Bayern Munich/Real Madrid)
Philipp Lahm (Bayern Munich)
Javier Mascherano (Barcelona)
Lionel Messi (Barcelona)
Thomas Müller (Bayern Munich)
Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich)
Neymar (Barcelona)
Paul Pogba (Juventus)
Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid)
Arjen Robben (Bayern Munich)
James Rodríguez (Monaco/Real Madrid)
Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)
Bastian Schweinsteiger (Bayern Munich)
Yaya Touré (Manchester City)

Shortlist will be cut to 3 in December.

my favorite there this past year:
robben for his world cup + bayern displays
neuer as the best keeper on the planet today
di maria as #1 jackrabbit -- both in madrid & for argentina (haven't seen him in man u)
bale is great but i haven't seen him enough
i hear great things about costa but i am not witness
james fantastic for colombia but i haven't seen more (witnesses please do tell)
cronaldo had a shit world cup but was eurochampion, i still hate him
mascherano great world cup but for barca the other day no

pogba no wei
ramos?
touré??
schweinsteiger not his year (too wounded)
neymar possibly
messi not his year
zlatan did what?

what is the period that this covers anyway? august to august or jan-dec?

===

PS-


So… what did you think?

I think it's for Jan-Dec 2014. I don't think anyone in the Prem stands much of a chance (and no English player shortlisted again is embarrassing). Ronaldo and Messi will surely make the final 3 but no idea who the third spot will go to. Robben? Costa? Muller? Either way, I can see Ronaldo winning it by a distance.

But where's ma man? Not even shortlisted?






UEFA. What a bunch of vegetarians.

EDIT: An interesting read re the Ballon D'Or shortlist

http://www.theguardian.com/football/...-man-shortlist

Oh, and Bielsa (sorry h8kurdt) gets the wrong kind of cup

[quote=!@#$%!]my favorite there this past year:
robben for his world cup + bayern displays
/quote]

https://dn3pm25xmtlyu.cloudfront.net...VGSUJFNRFZBBTA

[quote=SuchFriendsAreDangerous] ha ha ha! more like this:



i can't stop laughing every time i see that

Who's the black player to the left of Robben, rehearsing his "greedy cunt" rant?

Bayern and Dortmund? Don't mind if I do.

See it's time like this when Robben's one footedness shows him up. A chance wasted cos of that. And it's watching this that you think "oh so that's why everyone banged on about Kagawa"

And previous you guys' comments about the champions league, Chelsea/Bayern final has to happen.

so far, epic!

dortmund chose the right game to make their comeback.

and yes, kagawa! it helps to have kehl organizing things too.

--

ps- weidenfeller intent on killing his own teammates

--

pps - a bit too soon to have called it a dortmund comeback. subotic horrible today, both goals are on him. grosskreutz in for kagawa = inexplicable. don't know how far dortmund will sink today but fucking terrible [eta = they're #16 right now, relegation playoff spot]. happy for bayern, i'm a bit torn cuz i love both teams.

Bloody Ribery.

Shit, would've liked to see the Bayern-Dortmund game.

And Liverpool minus Suarez equals midtable mediocrity

bayern/dortmund was in retrospective not as epic as it felt. i mean the first half yes dortmund was ahead and deservedly.

in the second half hummels was subbed out (injured i think) bayern put the pressure on and was unable to score except for 2 clear subotic fuckups (who had come in for hummels)-- one poor clearance that went right to lewandowski and an evident foul on ribéry. in both cases it was ribéry that created the original danger-- all good etc but before he came in bayern was frustrating. also both goals happened after kagawa was subbed out, which took the teeth from dortmund's attack.

weidenfeller had a great day with many good saves and provided comedy by a) clearing the ball right into the back of mkhitarian's head (who fell hard and was briefly taken out), and b) almost knocking 2 of his defenders unconscious in a high clearance--subotic escaped but i think it was kehl that went down hard and stayed down a bit.

it was a pretty great game actually ha ha ha. damn, i wanna watch it again. it wasn't a perfect game or anything but it was eventful.

but fuck, poor hapless dortmund can't catch a break. they are now after the end of the weekend at #17, or 2nd from last, which is a relegation position (because freiburg just climbed above them by getting their first win of the season vs köln): http://www.bundesliga.com/en/stats/table/

sad to hear about liverpool. i probably won't waste time watching them rematch vs. madrid. more curious about seeing juve-olympiakos that day since juve lost against them (surprise) and must come back from that to stay alive.

Just listened to a couple of pundits on a podcast talking about the Bayern-Dortmund game being this best so far this season in any division. Didn't see it but sounds epic.

Hmm I dunno about that. It was a good game and certainly interesting to watch. Especially given how much Dortmund held their own and made Bayern struggle a bit. Something they haven't had to do so far this season (in the league) from what it seems.

Best game? Nah.

re: season -- they tied last week vs. monchengladbach, but it wasn't as fun as they didn't have to come from behind and there were no goals. also, dortmund beat them 2-0 in the dfl supercup on august (that's the winner of bundesliga vs. winner of dfb pokal--the equivalent of your fa cup)... they haven't lost since though

the first half was probably the best first half though

Rodgers' team selection tonight is one big admittance of defeat

saw an awesome flag: "dopo la mamma, amo solo la juventus"

ha ha ha

Haha

Actually Liverpool aren't playing bad, but a Real goal looks inevitable