Football Season 2020-21

[Happenstance]

7 hours ago, Julius said:

Alright, I feel like this tells you pretty much everything you need to know 

To be fair on that one, I was looking at those and nearly every tweet was followed by a “damn autocorrect!” one afterwards 😆 

[Fierce_LiNk]

Rashford mural defaced

FA review after fans break into Wembley

Racist abuse of England players condemned by FA and Boris Johnson

49 arrests in London following the final

For such a beautiful game, football sure has its many ugly parts. 

[Julius]

3 minutes ago, Fierce_LiNk said:

Racist abuse of England players condemned by FA and Boris Johnson

Isn't that same sentient toupee the one that refused to condemn fans booing our lads that took the knee? What a joke. 

[Aperson]

I'm not even surprised to be honest. A lot of people were going to get drunk watching this final and then seeing three players of African or Central American descent all miss penalties while the two white players scored penalties is going to give cause to someone without too much sense and with the hinges unleashed people are just going to just think "oh, they missed a penalty, they don't deserve to play for England"

 

Personally I think we should ban alcohol but that's a whole different can of worms that I really don't want to get into.

[Julius]

Glad Rashford got out and said his piece, kind of love how fans covered up the defaced sections of the mural with messages of support. 

I said it last night and I'll say it again now: he deserved to have that ball hit the back of the net last night. Everything he's done off the pitch these last 18 months - the way he carries himself and his maturity, the way he isn't actually afraid to use his status to put pressure on politicians as and when it is the fair thing to do so - completely warranted it going in, it just wasn't meant to be unfortunately. 

He'll bounce back, and I hope this England team bounces back. I didn't have faith until deep into extra-time (funny how I'm optimistic a lot of other places, but football isn't one of them), but I felt the way I did last night - head buried deep in my t-shirt, heart pounding, covering my eyes - for the first time with football since Chelsea won the Champions League in the midst ridiculous of circumstances in 2012. Made me feel like a kid again, powerless yet empowered. 

Fingers crossed these lads will get another chance! 

[Julius]

It's been kicking around the last few weeks (and let's be honest, it's been a rumoured transfer since before he even went to Madrid), but Varane is finally going to United for the massive sum of...£34 million (rising to £42 million with add-ons). They've just got one of the best defenders of the last decade on the cheap, and he's only 28. I know there was word about him pushing for a move and wanting to experience the Premier League, especially after Zidane and then Ramos left, but that's an insanely good piece of business. Finally a United signing I'm genuinely envious and frightened of. 

Florentino Perez is an idiot (is this any surprise?). Letting Ramos go on a free and disrespecting him as he has other Real legends in the past (Casillas, Navas, et al), clearly not putting up any real fight to keep Varane (who, fair play to him, wanted as clean a break as possible), replacing Ramos with Alaba who isn't the same defender he once was, not really supporting Zidane who somehow got the performances out of a second string team to take them to competing for La Liga until the last day of the season and the semi-finals of the Champions League. This isn't even mentioning the mess of the last 5 years, such as keeping Bale and letting Ronaldo go. 

I'm getting serious 2007/08 vibes from Madrid now. Perez is hell-bent on getting Mbappé on a free next year (if not this year, though I don't see PSG allowing that) - and potentially Haaland too, who will then be available at €75 million if I'm remembering right thanks to his release clause - and seems happy to effectively nuke the squad for this coming season to free up the money to do so. Expect Madrid to go on a spending spree that'll make your nose bleed next summer in yet another Galacticos overhaul a la 2009, because the defence will need strengthening, their attack needs quality bench options, and their midfield, while still in control and very experienced, needs to slowly see some more new faces introduced beyond Valverde and a potential Odegaard return. 

[LazyBoy]

17 hours ago, Julius said:

I'm getting serious 2007/08 vibes from Madrid now. Perez is hell-bent on getting Mbappé on a free next year (if not this year, though I don't see PSG allowing that) - and potentially Haaland too, who will then be available at €75 million if I'm remembering right thanks to his release clause - and seems happy to effectively nuke the squad for this coming season to free up the money to do so. Expect Madrid to go on a spending spree that'll make your nose bleed next summer in yet another Galacticos overhaul a la 2009, because the defence will need strengthening, their attack needs quality bench options, and their midfield, while still in control and very experienced, needs to slowly see some more new faces introduced beyond Valverde and a potential Odegaard return. 

That EUR75m for Haaland is false, since you're going to have to tag on an additional 40m in agents fees (minimum), some kind of signing on fee, plus 300k a week. Riola is going to make out like an absolute bandit. 

[Julius]

47 minutes ago, LazyBoy said:

That EUR75m for Haaland is false, since you're going to have to tag on an additional 40m in agents fees (minimum), some kind of signing on fee, plus 300k a week. Riola is going to make out like an absolute bandit. 

 I was talking about the release specifically  but you're right that there's going to be stuff beyond that like signing-on fees, add-ons, agent fees, and his weekly salary to add on top of that. Raiola's a twit but he's great at his job and getting his players what they want. 

Still, compared to some of the other fees we've seen, unless Haaland gets seriously injured or ends up massively underperforming this season, he'd be worth every penny. Still think it'd be in Madrid's best interest to make sure they've got the rest of the team up to par for that too, though. 

Honestly, it's probably in Mbappé's best interests to hold out until he can leave on a free and potentially become the highest paid footballer in the world if/when he goes to Madrid next summer, thanks to the amount they'd be saving on his transfer fee (probably some €150 million right now with a year left on his contract). It's funny because until the last five years or so, outside of outliers like Lewandowski's move to Bayern, I didn't feel like you really saw many players, agents, or teams planning around and winding down contracts to get the best deals for all involved and making full use of the Bosman rule. Now it seems like it's being considered for a lot of moves and as a result you get players on contracts that they were never going to be worthy of (such as Aaron Ramsey at Juve). 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Julius

[Mandalore]

Looking forward to the new season. On paper at least, it looks like it could be a 4 horse race with Man Utd's new signings and Liverpool's players returning from injury. 

[Julius]

Barcelona have said that Messi will leave the club. 

Quote

Despite FC Barcelona and Lionel Messi having reached an agreement and the clear intention of both parties to sign a new contract today, this cannot happen because of financial and structural obstacles (Spanish Liga regulations).

As a result of this situation, Messi shall not be staying on at FC Barcelona. Both parties deeply regret that the wishes of the player and the club will ultimately not be fulfilled.

FC Barcelona wholeheartedly expresses its gratitude to the player for his contribution to the aggrandisement of the club and wishes him all the very best for the future in his personal and professional life.

What. The. Heck. This comes hours after Marca reported it completely out of the blue. 

They've been trying to sort this out for a few months now, but what with La Liga pushing hard on the wage cap with little leniency over the last month, seems like Tebas has made an egregious mistake. There were rumours of him getting a five year contract which might have him play a few more years for Barça before going to America and being paid a lot in an ambassador role before potentially returning for a final game at Barça, but La Liga were against this too. Barça haven't been able to offload any of their overpaid first team players so far this window as planned, and even players like Aguero (who was joining to play with Messi, and it was seen as a move to smooth things over after the failures over Suarez and Neymar in recent years) and Depay haven't been able to officially sign on to the team due to the wage cap issue. And Messi's contract has been up since the end of the season, so he's also been waiting amidst protracted contract talks, but things looked up in recent weeks, especially after he won the Copa America. 

This was all expected to be smoothed over as part of CVC Capital offering $3.2 billion for a slice of the La Liga pie a few days ago, which would allow for wage cap restrictions to be eased somewhat, but bigger clubs like Real and Barça have been against it, as it's a short term outlook which may hinder the league's progress in years to come and provide more direct relief for smaller teams for now, with the bigger teams standing to lose the most immediately but everyone in for a potential loss in the long run. But this was just a poorly timed coincidence which wouldn't have in actuality had any impact on Messi staying. 

Because even with this it would have been impossible to sign Messi: he could have signed on a €0 per year contract and Barça STILL would have been in the red and needed to offload players. You've got Griezmann somehow on a reported €800,000 per week contract, De Jong on €375,000 per week...and so on. It's embarrassing how poorly one of the biggest clubs in the world has been run, and I want to say over the last 5 years because it had been worse under Bartomeu, but it goes back way further than that. It has been a commonly known fact that Barça have been in the red for a very long time, so much so that from first game experience, when I visited the Camp Nou in 2013 on a tour bus, the guide shared that the club was believed to already be more than €300 million in debt. They deserve the mess that they're in now, and there are even reports that after Messi agreed a 50% pay cut, the club may have even pushed for more. They knew full well they likely wouldn't be able to keep him, but leaving it this close to the start of the season is absurd. 

It's got to be PSG or Man City next for him, surely? Either partnering up with Neymar again as they've both dreamed of for a while (Messi providing passes to Neymar and Mbappé sounds disgusting) or we'll see City drop their efforts to pick up Kane, hanging him out to dry so we can finally see if Messi can do it on a cold, rainy Tuesday night in...well not Stoke, maybe Burnley? Do wonder if a move to PSG might make the path to Madrid for Mbappé an easier one, can't see why he'd want to leave this summer if Messi did hypothetically join, though. I could see him staying this year with a great chance at the Champions League if they do get Messi with a very stacked attack (but admittedly lean midfield) and then if he did leave for Madrid next summer, I could see PSG moving for Ronaldo (whose contract I also believe is up next summer, whose time has so far been seemingly wasted in Italy with Juve's poor transfer strategy and messy managerial situation, and let's be honest, he seems like a guy who would suit Paris) as a big name move -- I think this could be our best chance at seeing Messi and Ronaldo on the same team. 

Shame it's ended this way, but both Barça last year and now La Liga this year have brought this upon themselves -- if this wasn't coming from an official Barça statement, I'd think it was a move to pressure La Liga. How you can let the greatest player to grace your league just walk away like this - and on a free no less - is beyond me. Just over 4 years to the day since Neymar left for PSG, too. 

Edited August 6, 2021 by Julius

[killthenet]

It's confirmed then, Grealish has signed for Man City. Even though we've known for days it's been coming it still feels like a punch in the gut. Villa's Chief Executive posted a video at 8pm to explain the situation that there was a clause in the contract Grealish signed last September where the club would not stand in his way if an offer for £100m came in - and Jack's desire to play Champions League football this season was the main driver behind his decision. 

I don't feel angry towards Jack at all but I'm nevertheless disappointed that it ends like this. I wanted him to be a one club wonder, to be with Villa as they climbed back to the top end of the Premier League - it's a shame that dream can't happen now. He's been an incredible player for us, sticking with us through relegation and a few middling seasons in the Championship before leading us back to the top table and then keeping us there. I still believe Villa are a club on the up, even without Grealish, and I'm very excited to see how we look with the new signings - on paper our attack looks frighteningly good - it's just sad we'll never get to see Bailey, Buendia and Grealish line up together. 

I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing him in a Man City shirt