MC were out anyway so they were playing with more of an eye on their game against MU at the weekend. I don't think they'd have beaten Dortmund anyway but the situation as it is meant there was only ever gonna be one team really going for it.

they had a chance to make it to the europa league though, which ajax took instead.

but you're right, the prem is where their chances are at this point. still, what a fucked up collection of individual talent.

The Europa League is a joke... none of the English, Spanish, German or Italian teams could really give a fuck about it because there's zero money to be made.

Even some Dutch teams are now starting to throw away EL-games and admit openly that it's hardly a priority for them because they want to concentrate on the national league to try and grab one of the two CL tickets... that's were the money is. I don't kow the exact figures, but in the case of Ajax for instance I'd be willing to bet that just the CL starting bonus from UEFA and the money earned from the television rights gives them a higher profit than wining the fucking Europaleague would... even if they had finished last in their group.
When a small league like the Dutch one is more important than the Europa League, then that says it all really... and recently that cunt Michel Twatini suggested to get rid of the EL altogether and expand the CL to 64 teams? Fuck off! The expansion of the Champions League has greatly devaluated the EL (and UEFA Cup before that) and killed off most of my entertainment in watching the CL games in the group stages. Every year I have to check again what country BATE Barisov and Nordsjaelland are from... no offense, but who gives a fuck, really? It doesn't get exciting until the knock-out phase and I hardly even watch it anymore before February.

/rant.

ha ha, true, i don't give a fuck about the europa league, but i thought (mistakenly) that there was money to be made from extra matches.

bate-- those fuckers beat bayern 3-0, and i had never heard of them before. this is the first time i really get to follow the CL so i have nothing to compare it to, so no idea.

why you don't like platini? i'm not challenging your opinion btw, just asking, because i don't follow the news so close and don't know what he does. i only remember that during my childhood he was some sort of superstar.

Pelanty To Celtic!

Wahay!!

On a side note, my biggest annoyance in football in general is the way stadium announcers will go "The scorer of Arsenal's first goal number 16, Robin..." and then leave a gap for the crowd to shout the surname of the scorer. And then repeat this twice more. Fuck that annoys me. Thank god it never happens at Spurs.

the germans do that and it sounds fucking great-- the crowd gets to chant the name of their favorite gladiator

anyway, bayern 4 bate 1. sweet revenge.

FUCKED UP red card for boateng in what should have been a yellow. he misses 3 games. fuck that.

chelsea won 6-1 and still got boned? daaaaamn. last year's champions! poor fuckers....

Its been such fun watching the Chelsea fans, I'll look back on the last 10 days as a golden era.

How can you possibly like that announcer thing? Its the kind of thing that was designed for casual fans, the ones who come along and only know the top goalscorers name so they can pretend they give a shit the other 364 days of the year. "VAN PERSIE!! YAY I KNOW HIS NAME TOO!" Absolutely awful canned, corporate, shirt hoiking nonsense.

i don't know german, so i'm not sure it's exactly that, but it sounds great when they do it. lemme find you an example....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKxAHwLOakw

don't know if your guys do it that way

Thought this was an NFL thread
Blah

Not only has that confirmed my feelings, it has the fucking Seven Nation Army chanting in it as well!!! *tears own hair out*

wtf is a seven nation army? ha ha ha.

sorry about your hair :(

Are you being ironic? Seven Nation Army is the White Stripes song. The worst White Stripes song ever.

Anyway, im glad Juventus are through, just for the memories. When they had Zidane, and Del Piero. What a team. And they still have Buffon. One more European cup for Buffon, it has to happen

i haven't seen or heard the white stripes since they appeared in that jim jarmusch movie with the tesla coil. what was that, 12 years ago? i never liked them much before that anyway and paid no attention (yes, yes, i do live in a bubble of my own making).


buffon and pirlo are awesome. i also like chiellini. i understand pirlo has been having a tough year because the don't rest him enough and "at his age" it takes a toll. but hell yes, nice team.

Totally.

It's the one area of the game where the rest of the world could learn something from England. Seven Nation Army, that bastard Sloop John B one. The best chants are witty, ironic and usually bordering on the offensive or cruel but the main thing is they're funny. It's the one area of the game in England that stands against the processes of sanitisation. I know West Ham recently got in trouble for some anti-Semitic chants against Spurs but, while I can't condone them, it's better than the rent-a-fan chants I hear in the rest of Europe. And I almost gagged when I heard LA Galaxy fans chanting "thank you Beckham" during his final match. Ultimate chant fail, that one.

i don't understand half of what you're saying but i do recall watching a dc united/ la galaxy game where the dc fans were clearly and distinctly chanting FUCK YOU, BECKHAM, and you could hear in on TV. and of course LA lost, mhuaahaahaaahaa.


anyway about he rest-- i have no idea realy. not only am i new to european football outside of world cups, which is a matter of economics, but there's also a bit of linguistics involved-- i don't understand a word of the english (or irish) chants, when i hear them. for that matter, i have no clue what the germans say either--ha! but i do like it when the crowd screams the name because i though, hey, must be cool to hear the crowd call your name when you score (thats of course from my alien perspective).

I was only being half serious about the chanting. I've no idea what the German fans are actually signing, either, although I still can't stand that Seven Nation Army thing.

Anyway, big week in the Prem. The Manchester derby on Sunday and hopefully Chelsea continue to crash and burn against Sunderland. And West Ham face a Suarez-less Liverpool (which will likely mean Gerrard suddenly plays a blinder and they batter us).

Oh and West Ham are now the 'preferred bid' for the Olympic Stadium, meaning they're now almost certain to leave Upton Park, with one of the most intense atmospheres in the Prem, for a 60 thousand seat mega-stadium they'll never fill and that'll have all the atmosphere of a giant car park. That's progress, apparently.

ha ha ha--- that's brilliant!

----

demonYo-- ive never liked that goal chant, which i've always found annoying (even before knew it was a ws song)--- but i do like the calling of the names.

what if a bigger stadium means cheaper tickets???

It will probably mean cheaper tickets but the real issue is the sheer size of the new stadium. Upton Park is very small with the stands very close to the actual pitch creating an intense, almost cauldron-like atmosphere. West Ham can't compete with other London teams like Chelsea Arsenal or Spurs in terms of spending power and success but can easily hold their own in terms of the sheer experience of watching them at Upton Park. Even rival fans will acknowledge the unique atmosphere there, especially when the floodlights are on.

i've seen the stadium (on TV) and yeah it looks tiny and primitive and crammed as fuck during matches. it guess it makes for a great atmosphere, but i'm thinking: more seats = more revenue = better players, in the long run? ferrari vs. horse buggy :P

anyway, dortmund got fucked by wolfsburg 3-2. fucking painful.

after a very wrong and wrongheaded penalty plus a red card on schmeltzer for a crime he did not commit, wolfsburg was ahead and dortmund had a hard time coping. with subotic already injured the dormtmund defense was weak and ... fucking shit, so annoying, unfair. i love that bayern is ahead in the bundesliga but they are peeling away so far they are going to be alone for the title and that makes for shit football. then again maybe the real competition is on the CL.

ps- frankfurt is equal to dortmund in points @27 after beating werder bremen 3-1. but bayern has 41 pts already. ouch.

How much are Bundesliga tickets? To say Dortmund or Werder Bremen?

I was invited to Brentford again today. £23 for 3rd tier football. But today sounded like a belter. 89th minute winner from Clayton Donaldson against MK Dons!

ikara- not sure first-hand as i've never bought a bundesliga ticket and i've only been in a germany to change flights, but from some links i posted a couple of pages back it looks like the average ticket is something like 12 euros? i can't recall exactly. i watch it all on tv for $40/month over the price of basic cable/internet.

---

anyway, ingleses, some questions for you

1) why the fuck didn't lescott play?

2) why the fuck didn't tevez start?

3) why the fuck was dzeko left out until later?

4) does yaya toure have a chant?

5) how great or lucky was van persie's goal? damn. i say fucking great.

No real reason. He's not injured or anything. Just a case that Mancini seems to not be that into him.


Bad tactical decision by Mancini. Tevez looked good when he finally came on. Most people can't understand why he started with Mario Balotelli instead. MC simply look better when they start with Aguero and Tevez.


Dzeko has been out of favour with Mancini for more than a season, now. At best he's a super sub there.


Not that I'm aware of, but definitely deserves one.


Any goal that goes in via a deflection is gonna have an element of luck to it but Van Persie is pure class and still probably the best out and out goalscorer playing in the Prem.

[edit] Bollocks! Liverpool just scored against West Ham.

Pfft fuck the United comeback. EVERTON is where it's at. 2 goals in the the last 2 minutes PA POW!

But Dzeko needs to leave City if he ever wants a hope of playing regularly and not just as a 'super sub' as they call it.

wOW! just saw the highlights. dAAAMn

--


sorry demonyo for the results vs. liverpool. fun game to watch though.

West Ham beaten by three goals scored by ex West Ham players. Annoying in the extreme.

Two times now, Mancini has been completely out thought this season, today by Fergie and last week by Moyes.

we've been doing a chant from Sister Act at Palace for the past 2 or 3 seasons which is pretty good. never thought i'd hear a tune from Sister Act at football

i say good, i mean not bad. I say not bad, i mean not shit. not as shit

also

massive win for us last week against Brighton, and then a disapointing draw against Blackpool yesterday. Still 2nd and Cardif have extended their lead but i knew we had a tough run of games over the last few weeks and we're still in tough with 1st. so it's all good
but like i said we tend to be at 1 end of the league at christmas and the other end in May. if we can keep this form up i'll be really suprised!

interesting about west ham and the olympic stadium, i cannot fathom why any football club would want to go there. Like Demo says they'll never fill it, and historically stadiums with athletic tracks around the pitch are very flat atmospherically. There's such a gap between the players and the fans

is there a link we can hear?

----

also, could someone please explain the origin of this to me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBc1veYDpsE

i heard it today chanted w/ "jonjo... jonjo jonjo...."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7X5oBjzh1M

(turn it up)

haaa haaaa-- i did a little digging-- is this the source?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPpd-6X3tEo

funny thing about these chants, they are proper memes, in the richard dawkins sense, in that they reproduce and mutate across stadiums.

i've heard chants for spanish teams that i've also heard for south american teams, chants for MLS teams that originated in latin america (bcause the fans were immigrants), etc. shit's viral.

e.g., you've probably heard this elsewhere, with different team names:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB0Ahdo1qRY

(even in the comments, one fc berlin fan says they have the same song)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFd5Cci_pE4

And West Ham's classic anti-Frank Lampard song.

hilarious

---

also:

dang. my wife alerted me that sister act song was proper ancient and i googled the lyrics a bit and i found this shit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JVhbusBDi4

prehistoric!

So Messi scores his 86th goal in a calender season, breaking the record and fueling claims that he's the best ever. But is he capitalising on an era when defending has taken a bit of a step backwards? An era of great forwards but no single great defender I can think of.

attacking in today's post-catenaccio world is generally much tougher than the ancient era, no? i mean pele played in 4-2-4 formations...

barcelona's rival real madrid has pepe, sergio ramos, arbeloa, coentrao... no good?

[edit: plus khedira and xabi alonso in the midfield.]

but anyway you definitely make evident the fact that it's sort of impossible to compare. plus, how many matches per year did people play in ancient times? nowadays its 2 a week pretty much non-stop.

I tried to add myself once, and only earned an error message. Currently, I'm the only one on my buddy list.

WILL YOU BE MY BUDDY???

^_^


EDIT: WHY THE FUCK AM I IN THIS THREAD? THIS IS NOT MY THREAD.

for what it's worth, I try desperately hard to avoid ruining this thread. My respect for dwmonrail666 is too great.

Sorry.

Messi's still far from a one man show.

Today's Barça is not quite Maradona's Napoli.