[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Meanwhile the latest in the regularly updated series of 'sad Pep' photos ...

At this point (and after losing to their archrivals!) Wenger would be more than pleased to have City's numbers this season:

 

[!@#$%!]

so, on bundesliga business, hoffenheim played an ugly game vs frankfurt tomorrow but managed to score near the end and blam, they're in 3rd place now

which makes it interesting for next saturday cuz dortmund and hoffenheim will meet and it should be a straigh-up contest for 3rd place. 1st and 2nd are already taken. well not sure about leipzing guaranteed a second, but pretty much.

i know, this is nothing compared to the upcoming CL matches but hey, some excitement regardless

[demonrail666]

Hopefully RB will make second place. I know they divide people but they're at least shaking things up.

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

At this point (and after losing to their archrivals!) Wenger would be more than pleased to have City's numbers this season

Both have underachieved relative to expectation. Obviously Wenger would want to be in 4th but Pep can't be happy Man C's title bid was so lacklustre. He has a lot to prove next season, not just in the Prem but the CL too, in which MC did worse than under Pellegrini and with no guarantee yet they'll even qualify for next season's. Both managers have to see this season as a major disappointment.

Also Arsenal losing to 2nd placed Spurs, even if they are their main rivals, is less embarrassing than Man C having to rely on a Sané dive just to grab a point against 19th placed Middlesbrough.

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Originally Posted by demonrail666

Hopefully RB will make second place. I know they divide people but they're at least shaking things up.

i think they pretty much got it, unless they seriously fuck up their finish, which is unlikely.

if shaking things up is a value (let's call it increasing parity, or unpredictability, or something like that, which is good in sports) it has to be weighed against other competing values though, which are also desirable.

i mean, look at trump "shaking things up" while he demolishes truth, the rule of law, the separation of powers, and so forth (i hate that he's in every conversation these days, but how can his cosmic unpleasantness be avoided? he's shaking up every conversation, even...)

so the issue as always is "at what price"? that's up to germans to decide. i'm sort of agnostic here, at least so far, watching from a distance, and waiting for ramifications to develop. i'm taking it as an "interesting problem", sorta

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Originally Posted by demonrail666

Hopefully RB will make second place. I know they divide people but they're at least shaking things up.

i think they pretty much got it, unless they seriously fuck up their finish, which is unlikely.

if shaking things up is a value (let's call it increasing parity, or unpredictability, or something like that, which is good in sports) it has to be weighed against other competing values though, which are also desirable.

i mean, look at trump "shaking things up" while he demolishes truth, the rule of law, the separation of powers, and so forth (i hate that he's in every conversation these days, but how can his cosmic unpleasantness be avoided? he's shaking up every conversation, even...)

so the issue as always is "at what price"? that's up to germans to decide. i'm sort of agnostic here, at least so far, watching from a distance, and waiting for ramifications to develop. i'm taking it as an "interesting problem", sorta

[demonrail666]

Responding to your point about Trump, something I like about football is the way that it's politics without (significant) social consequence. (Partly why I like art, too: where you can be as irresponsible and as experimental as you like, knowing that ultimately nobody dies, nobody starves, etc. I know the arguments against that but it's increasingly how I feel and actually see it as a strength rather than a limitation) Anyway, I certainly wouldn't want Britain or any other country to be run the way the Prem is but something about the sentiment-free brutality of its economics does appeal to me, albeit only conceptually, which is why I oppose things like Financial Fair Play, fan ownership, salary caps, etc, and embrace (as an idea, anyway) teams like RB Leipzig, PSG, Man City, and Chelsea.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Responding to your point about Trump, something I like about football is the way that it's politics without (significant) social consequence. (Partly why I like art, too: where you can be as irresponsible and as experimental as you like, knowing that ultimately nobody dies, nobody starves, etc. I know the arguments against that but it's increasingly how I feel and actually see it as a strength rather than a limitation) Anyway, I certainly wouldn't want Britain or any other country to be run the way the Prem is but something about the sentiment-free brutality of its economics does appeal to me, albeit only conceptually, which is why I oppose things like Financial Fair Play, fan ownership, salary caps, etc, and embrace (as an idea, anyway) teams like RB Leipzig, PSG, Man City, and Chelsea.

yeah it was yeats that said that poetry makes nothing happen as i recall. and i agree with that mostly.

and sure that is exactly the thing with games: it's just games!

so from that perspective i see the value of a darwinian experiment in fast forward, to paraphrase william gibson (i think it was at the beginning of neuromancer, when he describes chiba city).

the question of the open-market leagues seems to be "if money is no object, what is the best war machine that we can build?"

large/established clubs already operate like that; what open markets allow is for large injections of capital to transform other/smaller/non established clubs into such behemoths.

and in that respect it's a great thing to increase the parity between teams and enhance the spectacle.

on the other side of the issue it seems to be that some games aren't just games. they're social pursuits/institutions/identities/more. and in darwinian experiments some survive and some go extinct. so, while extinction is of little consequence in a pure/abstract game, in social situations involving culture and identity and traditions, extinction is a great source of pain.

so, the social non-game component (fans, institutions, etc) tend to balance against destabilizing ("interesting") forces in various degrees. and here's where it gets fun for me to watch this as an external observer:

on the socioeconomic front, the germans have been pretty successful at balancing the forces of capitalism with social demands. they're both prosperous in business and socially equitable. which is a rare thing in a world where these things are presented as polar opposites.

and now that large capital is becoming more dominant in football, with global tv and the economic dominance of the prem and la liga, plus the prospect of a growing china-- how will the germans adapt? can they have a competitive social democracy in football? how will they cope? ha ha ha. it's an interesting question for me-- as a purely game of ideas anyway.

as for why i favor dortmund over leipzig-- i just know them more and therefore like them. but there are other bundesliga astroturf clubs-- hoffenheim is another one of them actually, backed/invented by a software magnate, ha ha. wolfsburg and leverkusen less so, but still.

anyway-- games today! i gotta get some work done before that...

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oh man. atleti leaky defense looks like. or real just too fucking deadly

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ha ha it was funny and terrible to write that just a couple of minutes before real's goal

and now on the 2nd half-- is it just me or has the game gotten duller as it's progressed? i think i'm ready to go back to work at this point.

except that i keep waiting for some surprise goal to chance the landscape...


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and sure here comes cronaldo, the fucking bastard. beautiful goal. must be nice to be a real fan today!

i wonder where h8kurdt is watching this...

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and now 3! well. the commentator asks "if you thought he was in declining form" . lol.

okay i should shut this down and get to work now. ufff.

o wait wait...

[h8kurdt]

Well the Seville/Celta Vigo was a game of two halves. My luck being what it is it was TORRENTIAL rain. That made the fact that the first half was as drab as you can get even worse. However, the second half had everything you could want in a game. Goals, red cards, a penalty, the ball hitting the post three times and all in all a great half of football.

Celta Vigo really weren't anything that night. Gonna be interesting to see how they kick it up against Man Utd.

Also, sitting in a bar with a load of football mad Spaniards watching Real Madrid, getting drunk on great wine and high on decent weed was a lot of fun.

[!@#$%!]

^^ ah, that sounds like an awesome trip!

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and now after initial control by juve, the suprising monaco is starting to make buffon suffer a bit!

dang... i'm liking this game...

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higua higua higua!!!! and dani alves! and dybala!!

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and again!!! whatta goal

it's funny that juve is tormenting monaco with what monaco does-- fast counters. and everything else really ha ha ha. what a great team.

but now come the substitutions! monaco not quitting just yet.

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....aaaaaaaaaand 2-0. NICE. poor monaco! too green

well looks like the final is shaping up...

[demonrail666]

Sounds like a great time H8kurdt. My mum lives quite close to Seville but I've never been. Will have to next time I visit her, though. Any good bar recommendations?

And yeah, what a well constructed team Juventus are. No real weak spots.

[h8kurdt]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Sounds like a great time H8kurdt. My mum lives quite close to Seville but I've never been. Will have to next time I visit her, though. Any good bar recommendations?

And yeah, what a well constructed team Juventus are. No real weak spots.

What? Man, just go. You can quite happily wander around looking at the arctitecture​ of the place and wander from bar to bar drinking and eating tapas. Amazing place. Worst thing is I agreed to work today so post holiday blues have kicked in.

Last night's game really was the old boys showing them how to do it. Especially Alves. Now that he's not at Barcelona it's all good for me to love him now.

Whilst watching the game I was reading the live text feed on the BBC website, some KNOB wrote in saying "if M'pabbe wants to be seen as world class he needs to step up in games like this". Lay off him the kid is 18! When I was 18 the most pressure I had was trying to tell a bird I liked her.

[h8kurdt]

As for bar recommendations I'll get the names of them.

[_tunic_]

!! Ajax !! Ajax !! Ajax !!
I'm a bit disappointed in myself that I didn't watch anything of last night's match, I didn't think they would win it from Lyon. But apparently it was a fantastic match, especially the second half.
A colleague of mine has already arranged an apartment in Stockholm, seriously.

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see, this is why we need a europa league

now i wanna watch it!

[demonrail666]

I think West Ham just killed Spurs's title bid.

[h8kurdt]

Massively. Can't believe they're choking AGAIN.

[!@#$%!]

dortmund vs hoffenheim about to square off

fighting for 3rd place & automatic champions spot

if you watch bundesliga this should be a fun fun game

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...and reus scores soon after 5 minutes from an offside play and the goal stands ha ha ha

not fair, but... he went back over the line before he shot and why should i complain? lol

...

then auba misses a penalty ha ha ha damn this game is bananas

...

so... game went 2-0 then 2-1 and it wasn't as fun in the middle as it was in the beginning but then picked up again near the end. made for a nice morning though

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Massively. Can't believe they're choking AGAIN.

They've always had a reputation for being a bit soft but I thought they'd got over that. Looks like it's 'Same old Spurs', though.

You won't have liked the Swansea result but god did they go for it today. I love this do-or-die part of the season.

[h8kurdt]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

They've always had a reputation for being a bit soft but I thought they'd got over that. Looks like it's 'Same old Spurs', though.

You won't have liked the Swansea result but god did they go for it today. I love this do-or-die part of the season.

Yeah, I think Lukaku's already left in his head, and the rest of the team know they're gonna finish 7th so don't give a shit. It's annoying, but hey-ho.

The bottom three really is gonna go to the wire, isn't it?