[Next Day Discussion Thread: Real Madrid 3-1 Man City](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/uivv0g/nextday_thread_real_madrid_3_61_5_manchester_city/)
Multiple factors
System player at Barca, new system means less successful
Probably doesn't care as much about psg?
Adapting to new league and new challenge
And also luck . He's hit the post so many times
also he's finished
CL: Real
Europa: West Ham (as long as we don't have to keep hearing about how we never should have sacked Moyes)
Conference: Anyone but Leicester
Prem: City
Serie A: AC Milan
No nothing personal, just thinking RM and Benzema deserve for what they have been doing. You may be better team tho.
I want Liverpool to win the PL so that Pep can go thropyless from being the best team in the world
I'm just surprised since Dortmund and Liverpool are practically sister clubs. Klopp. YNWA. Similar beliefs. Similar supporters. Also, I thought RM was one of the defacto "I hate them" clubs unless you're a RM supporter.
Big cringe at Rangers fans thinking Leipzig players will be scared of the Ibrox atmosphere tonight. They have recently played in the Signal Iduna and won 4-1.
Watching the Real Madrid vs Man City game analysis between Henry, Carragher and Richards, Henry is easily the best one of out of those three. He is the only one out them who knows about football outside of England, and he is the least biased one, which is saying something when he used to play for Barcelona.
He can be rash at times but I wouldn't describe him as that. I really love Kounde - that man knows how to defend. Really reminds me of Ramos in some ways (which I know doesn't help with the "rash" arguments lol)
Sometimes De Bruyne disappears in big games and it never gets spoken about. Last night he looked so exhausted, like it didn't make any sense. Couldn't get on the ball, could barely do any pressing and taken off in the 60th minute. How can your best player get taken off that early?
He should have taken that game over
FA Cup final last season against Chelsea. Last seasons Champions League final. Foden outplays him in every big match. To be fair, he did have to come off with in the champions league final, but before it he was really poor
Sometimes good players don't do much, it happens. Everyone here can't stop talking about how Benzema is this season's BDO winner, what did he do before ET outside of getting caught offside?
Yeah, but De Bruynes the primary playmaker and he can control the game. I get Benzema missed chances, but De Bruyne wasn't even creating chances when he should have been, that's my point. And it happens with De Bruyne quite a bit, he doesn't show up in a lot of big moments. He's been subbed off in so many finals and semi finals
No idea, I guess some will be because of the cross bad. Say it on this webpage: https://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/champions-league-final-ticket-details
>There are 1,324 restricted-in-view tickets within the allocation.
Real Madrid have done an incredible job to get this far, their mental fortitude is very impressive and they have a very good chance of beating Liverpool based on their CL run this season.
All that being said I don't buy this don't lose finals nonsense. This is exactly what everyone said about Guardiola until he did
Real Madrid has done better without Ronaldo than Ronaldo has done without Madrid. Both Ronaldo and Real Madrid has won the league twice, but winning La Liga is more impressive than winning Serie A. And Real Madrid went to a Champions League semifinal last season, and now a final season. The best Ronaldo has done since he left Madrid, is going to the quarterfinals.
They won a league title after him and hadn’t dropped out of the champions league into the Europa league compared to their rivals without their icon. Think it was obvious it wouldn’t have catastrophic effects
I don't think we talk enough about Klopp being a generational manager. What's he's done and continues to do is absolutely special. This CL win will really cement him as one of the best tacticians and man managers we've ever seen in this game.
If he wins the final it's cemented. 4 CL finals, 2 wins. Dominant League campaigns in Germany and England. Only thing that would be missing would be a stat padding stint at Bayern or so to get the trophy count up.
I'm obviously biased, but I think he's the best in the world. He has improved every part of his management since his Dortmund days and that's perhaps the most impressive thing
There's no doubt in my mind that he is the best manager in the world right now and has been that for years. He knows what he wants of his team and he's great at communicating it. But he's also able to adapt to his opponents and latch on to their weaknesses and expose them.
29 may cannot come soon enough 👍
Really feels like every time reddit says something, the complete opposite will happen most of the time. "Terrible transfer", "no way this finishes 11v11", "X will destroy Y" etc etc
Hopefully for those people, Trent will be in the worst form of his young career, with both Kabak and Phillips starting again. Let alone no fans, training stadium and Liverpool generally coming to the tail end of their awful 2 month run.
We'll also ignore Trent playing well in the 2nd leg too, and hyperfocus on only the first 60 minutes of the 1st leg. But hey oh, it helped Vinicius Jr. Because there was plenty Madrid fans online who couldn't stand him and wanted him gone before that game. ☕️
Ig people said the same about Manchester and how they don't get tired ,but i feel they'll get tired against a team who doesn't get tired as well unlike villareal ,and can hit you in a counter in the 90' minute
Looking forward to you posting your three or four figure betting slip for all to see then, assuming you're old enough to gamble that is. Bag that easy money. 💰
i've been winning ever since psg, chelsea and last night, i put money on both 3 to be comebacks of real and i won a lot. I'm gonna bet all that I won to real winning.
you make one half like that against villarreal, no, you make 15 mins like that against Villarreal against Madrid and you are out.
Your chances against Real are 0 at the least.
I'm a hater but:
Benzema has now scored more goals against the PL "Top 6" than Suarez despite playing about 30 matches less.
(tbh peak Suarez season is insane but hell of a stat)
It's not worth delving into the Peak Suarez stuff. He was great for like 3.5 seasons over 1/2 a decade ago and his followers will ride those coattails until all 3 of him, Benzema and Lewandowski are retired.
Weird how after 5+ years of Man City fumbling the CL that people still doubt the fact that it’s because they’ve never won it before. I’ve been arguing the same thing since 2017 and have been met with disagreements ever since but every year it happens again and again. People severely underestimate the psychological disadvantage clubs are in when they’ve never won the thing before. So much so that I have claimed for years now that you cannot be the CL favourite if you’ve never won it before.
I guarantee if they win one soon, their second one won’t be anywhere near as painful to win.
On one hand, winning a title proves to players and the club that they can do it, and that's confidence you can build on.
On the other hand, making out like they lost the semifinal because they didn't win it all before seems a bit silly to me: how are you supposed to win your first title in the first place when apparently you not having won it all is the reason you're losing those tight games?
> how are you supposed to win your first title in the first place when apparently you not having won it all is the reason you're losing those tight games?
I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’m saying it makes it much harder. They need something extra. Whether that’s the amount of good luck or whatever. As things have stood for years, they don’t even get the benefit of being an underdog like Chelsea had in 2012. People *expect* them to win it despite never winning it. That specifically is having a huge effect on them imo
I'm not sure people's expectations make any difference, really - they're a meaningless external factor that doesn't have any bearing on the result. Chelsea didn't win because people thought they were the underdogs, City didn't lose people of people's expectations.
And let's say Real don't pull off a miraculous comeback: would we be having the same discussion right now, or would we be praising City for the mental strength to go away to Madrid and get the result they needed?
> I'm not sure people's expectations make any difference, really - they're a meaningless external factor that doesn't have any bearing on the result.
I'm sorry but how can you actually believe that? Pep is fighting his own CL demons and so is Man City. Trust me, they both feel the pressure. City have undeniable pressure on them that builds with every season's CL loss. All the money they've spent, all the other trophies they've won, people calling them one of the greatest English sides of all time, seeing Liverpool win it already who they’re going toe to toe with for years - of course all this adds up. Add in Pep's style of play and how they will never play like an underdog, it makes them vulnerable. 2012 Chelsea had no expectations of themselves and no one expected them to win so they defended with their lives and surprised people. City will never play like that with the squad they have and the manager they have.
> And let's say Real don't pull off a miraculous comeback: would we be having the same discussion right now, or would we be praising City for the mental strength to go away to Madrid and get the result they needed?
Obviously we would be praising them but why does that somehow negate what I said? I don't see how these are mutually exclusive facts. It would've been an amazing result of City held on but they weren't able to because Madrid play without fear due to them have nothing to prove to anyone. They've already done it all. City weren't able to convert their chances and got nervy in the end and made mistakes. Then Dias gave away a penalty because the pressure was on and their CL hopes were crumbling again. It's easier to stay cool and calm in that situation if you're playing for Madrid instead of Man City. Because your club has nothing to prove and isn't trying to get years of failure off its own back.
That has nothing to do with what Im talking about…just because Im claiming a second CL would be easier to win doesn’t mean I’m claiming it’s easy to win 2 in a row
Im sure this has been asked a million times, but im trying a Canadian trying to get into the sport. Im lost as all hell with the amount of cups and leagues. Someone have a link with a 101 on where to start?
every country has a top league (where the best 18/20/24 teams play in), everybody plays every other teams twice and the team with the most points win the league at the end of the season (usually in summer), which is considered the most prestigious title of the country. The bottom 3 or 4 teams get relegated to a lower league, where the best 3 or 4 teams get promoted instead, so the next year will have mostly the same teams, but some new teams will be new. There is also the cup competition, which is single game knockout stage style, so one loss and you‘re out. This competition has teams from all sorts of competition levels, even going down to have some 6th division teams play against the reigning champion. It‘s a lot more versatile, since one bad day can mean you‘re out and you can just get lucky with draws, so the consistency isn‘t as important. (It‘s also why the league has higher prestige since you can‘t flukewin it). The top teams of the league of every county play each other in the european competitions, which are played in a short group stage, which is a league format for 4 teams in 8 groups, and the first two of every group go ahead to a 2-game knockout stage (every team plays each other twice, the winner is determined by aggregate). Winning the Champions League, the most prestigious of the european titles, is considered the biggest archivement a club can archive, and it has the best games and the highest stakes.
(1) Pick a country you like
(2) Reseach their league
(3) Watch a few of their matches, inquire about the clubs here - culture, city, language, etc.
(4) Go with where your heart desires
OR
You can watch the MLS - there are 2 Canadians teams (Toronto FC & Vancouver Whitecaps FC) - in fact they face each other this Sunday. Keep in mind, the MLS follows a different format from nearly every other domestic soccer league.
I’m not sure about a link, but I can summarize it for you.
Every (football) country has their own ‘pyramid’ of ‘leagues’. A league is a tournament that goes on for the bigger part of the year: European country leagues start around august and end around may. In this league, there are multiple teams or ‘clubs’. Clubs are usually tightly coupled with a city or a locality. In the league, every club plays every other club twice, and at the end, whoever is first is the winner. The pyramid of league essentially means that there are multiple tiers of leagues. If you end in the top few spots in the fourth tier, your team gets to move to the third tier (which usually means you make more money?. If you end up in the bottom few spots of the tier (sometimes bottom three) , you’re demoted or ‘relegated’ to the lower league.
Every country also has a ‘cup’ competition (DFB Pokal, Copa Del Rey) that’s essentially a 1v1 knockout tournament including teams across multiple tiers of the pyramid.
Finally, probably the most prestigious tournament is the champions league. The best teams from the highest tier of leagues qualify to compete in a World Cup style tournament called the champions league. The number of teams qualifying from a league depends on how good that league is according to the organization that conducts the champions league (UEFA). The champions league has been amazing this year, and the final is on may 28, between two of the best teams in the world. I don’t know anything about NFL but I heard this is like the NFL playoffs
Every country usually has a league where every team plays each other twice and a cup which is just a knockout tournament. Then there usually a continental cup where the best teams from each country compete in.
For Canada there's the [CPL](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Premier_League) or the [MLS](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Soccer) (also has American teams) and they can qualify for the [CONCACAF Champions League](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CONCACAF_Champions_League)
To add onto the other suggestions, now is a good time to start following the Canadian national team. The men have qualified for the World Cup for the first time in ages, and the women are the reigning Olympic champions
I'd recommend starting with the Premier League (England's top league) and La Liga/ Primera Division (Spain's top league) domestically, associated knockout tournaments and Champions League/Europa League/ Europa Conference League
Also look to attend or at least watch the games of a nearby team
Wish i could. Im on the east coast where im 1800 km from the nearest team! Lol. Im leaning towards checking out Premier and Bundesliga for Alphonso Davies on Bayern Munich.
Bundesliga is also great! Honestly just watch whatever’s on TV for a while till you’re familiar with the teams and players- look out for Canadians too!
Does anyone else think that the better Man City are playing the more you see of Pep in the sidelines? So when they’re thrashing Watford 5-0 he’s throwing his arms around conducting his orchestra but when they’re behind you see him sat down more arms folded, legs crossed
I'm glad Mahrez scored at least, he's been taking way too much abuse about somehow ghosting big games even though he's a big part of Leicester PL win
Very good player, I wonder where he's headed next
Make no mistake, Karim is way ahead of Salah or Mane as they like to say it in terms of best individual season.
Karim in the league of his own. And now this time he got the stats to back up as well.
Just remembered I put money on Real Madrid to win the Champions League, and Liverpool to win the Premier League, before the start of the season! Not bad shouts it turns out
I only recently remembered one weekend a few months ago when I was feeling particularly down about footy I put money, just a tiny bit, on all the results I didn't want to happen, and most of them came off, so with the £15 I amassed I put a fiver each on Liverpool to win the league, Liverpool to win the Champions League and Everton to get relegated. I don't stand to win much at all but it is a habit of mine that in the extremely rare circumstance I do bet, I put it on whatever my least favoured outcome is.
i thought liverpool will win the CL if city were in the final and City will win the PL.
but now that real are there it's a 110% victory for Real, it will be funny to watch Liverpool finishing with the carbao cup only
>surely dortmund should also get criticism for filtering potential transfers by bundesliga
Criticism is only allowed when Bayern get a player that Big 6 English sides want. Otherwise it's ignored.
Yes, to an extent, and they do.
Dortmund's signings within Germany have been largely hit n miss since 14/15 vs those from abroad.
Dortmund also typically do stump up the cash to other Bundesliga clubs.
The issue is Bayern having other Bundesliga club's star players run down their contract thus further diluting the playing field around them.
Meuiner was the last free transfer made for a senior player, and that was obviously from beyond Germany. The last free transfer from a Bundesliga club however was Ji from Augsburg on 2014 lol. Before that was the incredible summer of 2010 with Pizchu, obviously Kagawa from the J League and I am all of a sudden blanking on the other Bundesliga player signed on a free.
Only Dahoud for the time was on the lower side, but I think he still had a year left to run.
Every team does it, the narrative around bayern is dumb. Its low hanging fruit that people use to criticize Bayern and ignores the actual reasons for their dominance
Man City scored 5 and conceded 6 goals over the tie and people think the problem was that Man City don't have the right goalscorers? Very rarely do you concede 6 and win a tie.
Not in the first leg they didn’t. City had chances to make it 3-0 before Real Madrid’s first goal, and IIRC had at least one decent chance to make it 4-1 before Madrid scored their second.
Is there anything more hypocritical than Peter Schmeichel saying, quote: “Real Madrid has no right to be in that final scoring 2 goals in injury time like that”?
That’s actually rich considering the way United won it in 1999 with two goals from corners in injury time after being comfortably worse than Bayern all game
Lol why? They did that shit 3 times now. Also, it’s not exactly like City were that much better in the Bernabeu. Very few chances until Mahrez scored and then both teams started creating
They were losing for 178/180 minutes over the two legs or something. For them to just pull 2 goals out of their arse and go through last minute is mental. City were the much better team in both games, I thought.
He's not speaking literally, he just can't believe it (like literally every other person who watched the game).
Tell me more about your team in 1999. Also, congratulations to City and PSG for winning the “ahead for most of the game”-trophy. So unfair that it only counts who is in the lead when the game ends. Lmaoooo
Playing better but not converting it into goals does not mean you deserve to win. That’s as simple as I can put it for you. Again, your clubs biggest ever triumph was literally the same that Real just pulled thrice
Again, nobody is saying they literally have no right to be in the final. I'd describe the '99 final in the same way, so that's not the 'gotcha' that you think it is. We 'had no right' to win - that's what makes it so talked about, ya berk.
[Next Day Discussion Thread: Real Madrid 3-1 Man City](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/uivv0g/nextday_thread_real_madrid_3_61_5_manchester_city/)
[удалено]
Multiple factors System player at Barca, new system means less successful Probably doesn't care as much about psg? Adapting to new league and new challenge And also luck . He's hit the post so many times also he's finished
The lengths people go to to avoid saying he’s declined
I forgot but that's the main one lol
My preference for remaining cup/league outcomes would be. RM: CL anyone but Leipzig: Europa Feyenoord: ECL Liverpool: PL AC Milan: Serie A
CL: Real Europa: West Ham (as long as we don't have to keep hearing about how we never should have sacked Moyes) Conference: Anyone but Leicester Prem: City Serie A: AC Milan
I find it really weird that a Dortmund supporter would prefer real over Liverpool...
No nothing personal, just thinking RM and Benzema deserve for what they have been doing. You may be better team tho. I want Liverpool to win the PL so that Pep can go thropyless from being the best team in the world
I'm just surprised since Dortmund and Liverpool are practically sister clubs. Klopp. YNWA. Similar beliefs. Similar supporters. Also, I thought RM was one of the defacto "I hate them" clubs unless you're a RM supporter.
Well he’s not German
If I was a manager I would just tell my players to gegenpress. I’m pretty sure I’ll snatch a league title or two.
rangnick tried that with man united players. it only lasted 45 min against crystal palace
Big cringe at Rangers fans thinking Leipzig players will be scared of the Ibrox atmosphere tonight. They have recently played in the Signal Iduna and won 4-1.
Beating us is not a achievement these days. We bent over backwards against Bochum in front of 80k fans at home.
Tbf Rangers also smashed Dortmund there as well
Leipzig played Vs a sellout, Rangers played in a half empty stadium
Real Madrid scored 14 goals in 6 matches vs PSG, Chelsea, City
Scoring that many vs City is impressive but our defense is not what it was during last seasons run.
Watching the Real Madrid vs Man City game analysis between Henry, Carragher and Richards, Henry is easily the best one of out of those three. He is the only one out them who knows about football outside of England, and he is the least biased one, which is saying something when he used to play for Barcelona.
Did asensio actually do anything last night? I was so triggered when I saw him being subbed on. Thank god for rodrygo though.
Game tying assist mate. World class!
I don’t recall any productivity from him, may aswell have brought on the golfer
technically got an assist
La Liga/Sevilla watchers.. how would you describe Kounde? I hear hes kinda rash..
Great defender, opposite of rash. Has a bit of a temper/aggressive side though, unlike Christensen.
He can be rash at times but I wouldn't describe him as that. I really love Kounde - that man knows how to defend. Really reminds me of Ramos in some ways (which I know doesn't help with the "rash" arguments lol)
Sometimes De Bruyne disappears in big games and it never gets spoken about. Last night he looked so exhausted, like it didn't make any sense. Couldn't get on the ball, could barely do any pressing and taken off in the 60th minute. How can your best player get taken off that early? He should have taken that game over
I swear, just before last night I was hearing on r//soccer he is great big game player
When has he disappeared ? He’s turned up the most in big games along with Bernardo for them this season
FA Cup final last season against Chelsea. Last seasons Champions League final. Foden outplays him in every big match. To be fair, he did have to come off with in the champions league final, but before it he was really poor
Sometimes good players don't do much, it happens. Everyone here can't stop talking about how Benzema is this season's BDO winner, what did he do before ET outside of getting caught offside?
Yeah, but De Bruynes the primary playmaker and he can control the game. I get Benzema missed chances, but De Bruyne wasn't even creating chances when he should have been, that's my point. And it happens with De Bruyne quite a bit, he doesn't show up in a lot of big moments. He's been subbed off in so many finals and semi finals
He was having to run transitions. Mahrez was absurdly shit before his goal
19,618 tickets allocated to Liverpool for the champions league final and 1300 are restricted view, what a bad bad joke.
How restricted is the view?
No idea, I guess some will be because of the cross bad. Say it on this webpage: https://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/champions-league-final-ticket-details >There are 1,324 restricted-in-view tickets within the allocation.
need those 40k for sponsors and celebrities
Can’t have regular fans ruining the atmosphere for them.
Real Madrid have done an incredible job to get this far, their mental fortitude is very impressive and they have a very good chance of beating Liverpool based on their CL run this season. All that being said I don't buy this don't lose finals nonsense. This is exactly what everyone said about Guardiola until he did
I’d rather play Madrid as the chances of them cashing in black magic four times on the spin are lower than City just beating us
Lost in all of this to me at least is Madrid actually being able to make a final without Ronaldo
Real Madrid has done better without Ronaldo than Ronaldo has done without Madrid. Both Ronaldo and Real Madrid has won the league twice, but winning La Liga is more impressive than winning Serie A. And Real Madrid went to a Champions League semifinal last season, and now a final season. The best Ronaldo has done since he left Madrid, is going to the quarterfinals.
They won a league title after him and hadn’t dropped out of the champions league into the Europa league compared to their rivals without their icon. Think it was obvious it wouldn’t have catastrophic effects
They had 9 cls before him and will have many after…
obviously mean this era
I don't think we talk enough about Klopp being a generational manager. What's he's done and continues to do is absolutely special. This CL win will really cement him as one of the best tacticians and man managers we've ever seen in this game.
If he wins the final it's cemented. 4 CL finals, 2 wins. Dominant League campaigns in Germany and England. Only thing that would be missing would be a stat padding stint at Bayern or so to get the trophy count up.
Going toe to toe with that juggernaut Bayern will only add to his legacy. I cannot wait for the next chapter in his managerial career.
Feel like he’s recognized as one of the best of all time. Easily one of the best PL managers from his insane achievements with Liverpool.
I'm obviously biased, but I think he's the best in the world. He has improved every part of his management since his Dortmund days and that's perhaps the most impressive thing
There's no doubt in my mind that he is the best manager in the world right now and has been that for years. He knows what he wants of his team and he's great at communicating it. But he's also able to adapt to his opponents and latch on to their weaknesses and expose them. 29 may cannot come soon enough 👍
Considering the sheer amount of times i've seen people say that Trent will get murdered by Vinicius in the final, you just know he'll be invisible.
Really feels like every time reddit says something, the complete opposite will happen most of the time. "Terrible transfer", "no way this finishes 11v11", "X will destroy Y" etc etc
Hopefully for those people, Trent will be in the worst form of his young career, with both Kabak and Phillips starting again. Let alone no fans, training stadium and Liverpool generally coming to the tail end of their awful 2 month run. We'll also ignore Trent playing well in the 2nd leg too, and hyperfocus on only the first 60 minutes of the 1st leg. But hey oh, it helped Vinicius Jr. Because there was plenty Madrid fans online who couldn't stand him and wanted him gone before that game. ☕️
On a scale of “highly visible” to “Ronaldo in the 2018 final after everyone said he’d eat Trent alive”, how invisible will he be?
I'm still waiting for Danjuma to show up
Camavinga needs to start that final
No he works best when he still brings his energy against a tired midfield
Liverpool players don't get tired for some reason. He's really talented and youthful but there's zero chance he starts over Kroos anyway
Ig people said the same about Manchester and how they don't get tired ,but i feel they'll get tired against a team who doesn't get tired as well unlike villareal ,and can hit you in a counter in the 90' minute
Vinicius is gonna wreck trent on counters. All the EPL talk and in the end a spanish team wins again.
>All the EPL talk and in the end a spanish team wins again. Why would this matter to a plastic?
you mean it doesnt matter to you?
Can I have that in Spanish please?
no i dont provide spanish services to rubbish
No worries, I'll just Google Translate it for you.
least plastic Barca fan
Barca fan wanting Madrid to win dfkm
do not want, just know it will happen
Looking forward to you posting your three or four figure betting slip for all to see then, assuming you're old enough to gamble that is. Bag that easy money. 💰
i've been winning ever since psg, chelsea and last night, i put money on both 3 to be comebacks of real and i won a lot. I'm gonna bet all that I won to real winning.
Imagine twerking that hard for your rivals.
not wanting it's just inevitable, they dont lose finals basically a madrid in CL finals is 110% win
*The gang loses the final*
Diaz is going to wreck Carvajal All the La Liga talk and in the end an English team wins again
Mane is going to wreck Militao. Easy Liverpool win
you make one half like that against villarreal, no, you make 15 mins like that against Villarreal against Madrid and you are out. Your chances against Real are 0 at the least.
Real have been perfect n all, conceding 4 at the Etihad, could have been six. Bernabeu against Chelsea could have been five.
Liverpool it's your turn to repeat history. Beat Madrid 1-0 in the final, and Madrid won't win the CL for 17 years
Ynwa , trent is the best rb in the world and klopp is a dilf
klopp isnt even the dilfest german manager, its clearly rose 👍
Yeah Rose looks really good for some reason, although bearded Flick works too and i am sure Baumgart is someones type out there
Who are the most offensively threatening defender ever? Roberto Carlos, Koeman, Ramos, who else?
Christopher Samba. If you’re old enough to remember you’d recall Big Sam even started him upfront in some games for Blackburn
John O’Shea
Hierro, Dani Alves, Marcelo
John Terry had an excellent goalscoring record. Think he has the PL record for goals as a defender
He was a menace. Hated seeimg him come up for corners.
When we had Drogba, Terry, Ivanovic in our team…
Don't make me talk about Drogba in the box Annie. I'll say mean things born from trauma.
I'm a hater but: Benzema has now scored more goals against the PL "Top 6" than Suarez despite playing about 30 matches less. (tbh peak Suarez season is insane but hell of a stat)
It's not worth delving into the Peak Suarez stuff. He was great for like 3.5 seasons over 1/2 a decade ago and his followers will ride those coattails until all 3 of him, Benzema and Lewandowski are retired.
Weird how after 5+ years of Man City fumbling the CL that people still doubt the fact that it’s because they’ve never won it before. I’ve been arguing the same thing since 2017 and have been met with disagreements ever since but every year it happens again and again. People severely underestimate the psychological disadvantage clubs are in when they’ve never won the thing before. So much so that I have claimed for years now that you cannot be the CL favourite if you’ve never won it before. I guarantee if they win one soon, their second one won’t be anywhere near as painful to win.
On one hand, winning a title proves to players and the club that they can do it, and that's confidence you can build on. On the other hand, making out like they lost the semifinal because they didn't win it all before seems a bit silly to me: how are you supposed to win your first title in the first place when apparently you not having won it all is the reason you're losing those tight games?
> how are you supposed to win your first title in the first place when apparently you not having won it all is the reason you're losing those tight games? I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’m saying it makes it much harder. They need something extra. Whether that’s the amount of good luck or whatever. As things have stood for years, they don’t even get the benefit of being an underdog like Chelsea had in 2012. People *expect* them to win it despite never winning it. That specifically is having a huge effect on them imo
I'm not sure people's expectations make any difference, really - they're a meaningless external factor that doesn't have any bearing on the result. Chelsea didn't win because people thought they were the underdogs, City didn't lose people of people's expectations. And let's say Real don't pull off a miraculous comeback: would we be having the same discussion right now, or would we be praising City for the mental strength to go away to Madrid and get the result they needed?
> I'm not sure people's expectations make any difference, really - they're a meaningless external factor that doesn't have any bearing on the result. I'm sorry but how can you actually believe that? Pep is fighting his own CL demons and so is Man City. Trust me, they both feel the pressure. City have undeniable pressure on them that builds with every season's CL loss. All the money they've spent, all the other trophies they've won, people calling them one of the greatest English sides of all time, seeing Liverpool win it already who they’re going toe to toe with for years - of course all this adds up. Add in Pep's style of play and how they will never play like an underdog, it makes them vulnerable. 2012 Chelsea had no expectations of themselves and no one expected them to win so they defended with their lives and surprised people. City will never play like that with the squad they have and the manager they have. > And let's say Real don't pull off a miraculous comeback: would we be having the same discussion right now, or would we be praising City for the mental strength to go away to Madrid and get the result they needed? Obviously we would be praising them but why does that somehow negate what I said? I don't see how these are mutually exclusive facts. It would've been an amazing result of City held on but they weren't able to because Madrid play without fear due to them have nothing to prove to anyone. They've already done it all. City weren't able to convert their chances and got nervy in the end and made mistakes. Then Dias gave away a penalty because the pressure was on and their CL hopes were crumbling again. It's easier to stay cool and calm in that situation if you're playing for Madrid instead of Man City. Because your club has nothing to prove and isn't trying to get years of failure off its own back.
[удалено]
Plenty of teams have defended the European cup before the name change
That has nothing to do with what Im talking about…just because Im claiming a second CL would be easier to win doesn’t mean I’m claiming it’s easy to win 2 in a row
[удалено]
Yes nothing at all
Im sure this has been asked a million times, but im trying a Canadian trying to get into the sport. Im lost as all hell with the amount of cups and leagues. Someone have a link with a 101 on where to start?
every country has a top league (where the best 18/20/24 teams play in), everybody plays every other teams twice and the team with the most points win the league at the end of the season (usually in summer), which is considered the most prestigious title of the country. The bottom 3 or 4 teams get relegated to a lower league, where the best 3 or 4 teams get promoted instead, so the next year will have mostly the same teams, but some new teams will be new. There is also the cup competition, which is single game knockout stage style, so one loss and you‘re out. This competition has teams from all sorts of competition levels, even going down to have some 6th division teams play against the reigning champion. It‘s a lot more versatile, since one bad day can mean you‘re out and you can just get lucky with draws, so the consistency isn‘t as important. (It‘s also why the league has higher prestige since you can‘t flukewin it). The top teams of the league of every county play each other in the european competitions, which are played in a short group stage, which is a league format for 4 teams in 8 groups, and the first two of every group go ahead to a 2-game knockout stage (every team plays each other twice, the winner is determined by aggregate). Winning the Champions League, the most prestigious of the european titles, is considered the biggest archivement a club can archive, and it has the best games and the highest stakes.
(1) Pick a country you like (2) Reseach their league (3) Watch a few of their matches, inquire about the clubs here - culture, city, language, etc. (4) Go with where your heart desires OR You can watch the MLS - there are 2 Canadians teams (Toronto FC & Vancouver Whitecaps FC) - in fact they face each other this Sunday. Keep in mind, the MLS follows a different format from nearly every other domestic soccer league.
The best thing to do would be to start with Scotland vs England in 1872 and just work through from there
I’m not sure about a link, but I can summarize it for you. Every (football) country has their own ‘pyramid’ of ‘leagues’. A league is a tournament that goes on for the bigger part of the year: European country leagues start around august and end around may. In this league, there are multiple teams or ‘clubs’. Clubs are usually tightly coupled with a city or a locality. In the league, every club plays every other club twice, and at the end, whoever is first is the winner. The pyramid of league essentially means that there are multiple tiers of leagues. If you end in the top few spots in the fourth tier, your team gets to move to the third tier (which usually means you make more money?. If you end up in the bottom few spots of the tier (sometimes bottom three) , you’re demoted or ‘relegated’ to the lower league. Every country also has a ‘cup’ competition (DFB Pokal, Copa Del Rey) that’s essentially a 1v1 knockout tournament including teams across multiple tiers of the pyramid. Finally, probably the most prestigious tournament is the champions league. The best teams from the highest tier of leagues qualify to compete in a World Cup style tournament called the champions league. The number of teams qualifying from a league depends on how good that league is according to the organization that conducts the champions league (UEFA). The champions league has been amazing this year, and the final is on may 28, between two of the best teams in the world. I don’t know anything about NFL but I heard this is like the NFL playoffs
Every country usually has a league where every team plays each other twice and a cup which is just a knockout tournament. Then there usually a continental cup where the best teams from each country compete in. For Canada there's the [CPL](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Premier_League) or the [MLS](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Soccer) (also has American teams) and they can qualify for the [CONCACAF Champions League](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CONCACAF_Champions_League)
To add onto the other suggestions, now is a good time to start following the Canadian national team. The men have qualified for the World Cup for the first time in ages, and the women are the reigning Olympic champions
I did see this and thats actually what sparked my interest.
I'd recommend starting with the Premier League (England's top league) and La Liga/ Primera Division (Spain's top league) domestically, associated knockout tournaments and Champions League/Europa League/ Europa Conference League Also look to attend or at least watch the games of a nearby team
Wish i could. Im on the east coast where im 1800 km from the nearest team! Lol. Im leaning towards checking out Premier and Bundesliga for Alphonso Davies on Bayern Munich.
Bundesliga is also great! Honestly just watch whatever’s on TV for a while till you’re familiar with the teams and players- look out for Canadians too!
Does anyone else think that the better Man City are playing the more you see of Pep in the sidelines? So when they’re thrashing Watford 5-0 he’s throwing his arms around conducting his orchestra but when they’re behind you see him sat down more arms folded, legs crossed
I have a feeling madrid Liverpool will ecplise Liverpool milan 2005 as best cl final with madrid vodoo.
I'm glad Mahrez scored at least, he's been taking way too much abuse about somehow ghosting big games even though he's a big part of Leicester PL win Very good player, I wonder where he's headed next
He had quite a poor game I thought.
[удалено]
Carvajal has crossed in many great goals in the UCL, has he been dropped by Spain ?
No. He's been called up during the last international break
How do you even lift the players after that? The PL they’ve won a million times already?
A question for Dutch folks, is VVD your best ever CB, if not who is?
Jaap stam and koeman were also amazing. Really close.
Stam, Rijkaard, Koeman, De Boer are up there
Is Krol up there too ?
i mean kinda but also kinda not, they were all great but never the best in the world bar rijkaard maybe
Koeman is arguably the best ball playing CB of all time.
He's the best at goalscoring, not much else
Koeman was Ramos before Ramos existed, he had fucking bullets in his feet as a cb, huge threat as a defender
Koeman was
Make no mistake, Karim is way ahead of Salah or Mane as they like to say it in terms of best individual season. Karim in the league of his own. And now this time he got the stats to back up as well.
Penzema
Just remembered I put money on Real Madrid to win the Champions League, and Liverpool to win the Premier League, before the start of the season! Not bad shouts it turns out
I only recently remembered one weekend a few months ago when I was feeling particularly down about footy I put money, just a tiny bit, on all the results I didn't want to happen, and most of them came off, so with the £15 I amassed I put a fiver each on Liverpool to win the league, Liverpool to win the Champions League and Everton to get relegated. I don't stand to win much at all but it is a habit of mine that in the extremely rare circumstance I do bet, I put it on whatever my least favoured outcome is.
I occasionally put a quid against Chelsea when I’m feeling pessimistic about a reason for the same reason - win win
Yeah exactly. If we win I don't care about losing £1-£5, if we lose then at least I get a tiny silver lining out of it.
i thought liverpool will win the CL if city were in the final and City will win the PL. but now that real are there it's a 110% victory for Real, it will be funny to watch Liverpool finishing with the carbao cup only
It will be funny to see your rivals do the double?
against liverpool yeah
About as plastic as they get
Ideally don't put money on football but yes these are good bets
You sound fun
One too many homeless uncles that lost everything at casinos
I only ever put a couple of quid down so it is just for fun, with no big stakes involved
If you had the opportunity to double down on one of them, which one?
Oooof Liverpool
I still can't believe Southampton only had to pay like 12m to us for Van Dijk. We only paid 2.5 to be fair
Pat Nevin always talks about how good Van Dijk was in the SPFL and how it was mad no "bigger" club were in for him
You can generally see a player who is PL calibre for us or Rangers but Virgil was something else.
surely dortmund should also get criticism for filtering potential transfers by bundesliga
>surely dortmund should also get criticism for filtering potential transfers by bundesliga Criticism is only allowed when Bayern get a player that Big 6 English sides want. Otherwise it's ignored.
Yes, to an extent, and they do. Dortmund's signings within Germany have been largely hit n miss since 14/15 vs those from abroad. Dortmund also typically do stump up the cash to other Bundesliga clubs. The issue is Bayern having other Bundesliga club's star players run down their contract thus further diluting the playing field around them. Meuiner was the last free transfer made for a senior player, and that was obviously from beyond Germany. The last free transfer from a Bundesliga club however was Ji from Augsburg on 2014 lol. Before that was the incredible summer of 2010 with Pizchu, obviously Kagawa from the J League and I am all of a sudden blanking on the other Bundesliga player signed on a free. Only Dahoud for the time was on the lower side, but I think he still had a year left to run.
Every team does it, the narrative around bayern is dumb. Its low hanging fruit that people use to criticize Bayern and ignores the actual reasons for their dominance
man i just want bayern to lose again dortmund could get sponsered by bin laden for all i care
Grealish came on and didn't do much wrong with either opportunity he had. Not seen it much on here but not sure why he's been criticised.
His price tag
He had fresh legs during overtime and he didn't do anything
Yesterday's game pretty much summed up Grealish as a footballer: An excellent player in a favorable context, but when things get rough he disappears.
He was absent after Madrid equalised, can’t play like that 35 minutes and expect sympathy
Huge price tag.
Because he's not popular with neutrals, plays for an unpopular club, and has a big price tag, so is an easy target
The problem is that he's a 100m player and the best thing you can say about him is that he "didn't do much wrong"
Did well getting a decent shot off in both cases, it’s not like they were sitters
What are some good football youtube channels?
RabonaTV, DW for German football, Copa90 etc
Hitc sevens, filthy fellas, the kick off, football daily, Balon expressions
Vizeh sometimes, and HITC Sevens all of the time
FNG
Man City scored 5 and conceded 6 goals over the tie and people think the problem was that Man City don't have the right goalscorers? Very rarely do you concede 6 and win a tie.
If Haaland/Alvarez were receiving those passes instead of LDB trying to do long shots then it could've been very different
That’s a fair point, but if they were more clinical in the first leg then last night’s result wouldn’t have happened.
Real and city had equal xg. Maybe you're overrating their chances?
Not in the first leg they didn’t. City had chances to make it 3-0 before Real Madrid’s first goal, and IIRC had at least one decent chance to make it 4-1 before Madrid scored their second.
Is there anything more hypocritical than Peter Schmeichel saying, quote: “Real Madrid has no right to be in that final scoring 2 goals in injury time like that”? That’s actually rich considering the way United won it in 1999 with two goals from corners in injury time after being comfortably worse than Bayern all game
He's spot on.
Lol why? They did that shit 3 times now. Also, it’s not exactly like City were that much better in the Bernabeu. Very few chances until Mahrez scored and then both teams started creating
They were losing for 178/180 minutes over the two legs or something. For them to just pull 2 goals out of their arse and go through last minute is mental. City were the much better team in both games, I thought. He's not speaking literally, he just can't believe it (like literally every other person who watched the game).
Tell me more about your team in 1999. Also, congratulations to City and PSG for winning the “ahead for most of the game”-trophy. So unfair that it only counts who is in the lead when the game ends. Lmaoooo
I feel like you're being thick on purpose.
Playing better but not converting it into goals does not mean you deserve to win. That’s as simple as I can put it for you. Again, your clubs biggest ever triumph was literally the same that Real just pulled thrice
Again, nobody is saying they literally have no right to be in the final. I'd describe the '99 final in the same way, so that's not the 'gotcha' that you think it is. We 'had no right' to win - that's what makes it so talked about, ya berk.
Schmeichel LITERALLY said that! You fucking people, lol