Football Season 2023/24

[Julius]

Comunicado oficial: Mbappé is leaving PSG this summer. 

Not one mention of Nasser Al-Khelaifi the entire video, despite thanking everyone at PSG, in the entire city of Paris, and their mothers. Love it 

Edited May 10 by Julius

[Nicktendo]

13 minutes ago, Julius said:

Comunicado oficial: Mbappé is leaving PSG this summer. 

Where's he going? Newcastle?

[darksnowman]

That's the league over now for the Pool. Things severely went off the boil after they all pulled together and performed beyond their limits over the winter months.

On 10/05/2024 at 8:38 PM, Nicktendo said:

Where's he going? Newcastle?

Amanda would love him in as player-manager. I'm sure they'd rename the club after him, put his face on the kit and whatever else he wants.

[darksnowman]

1-0 in a minute. Looks like I'm watching this one and the next even though they're dead rubbers. 180 mins and I'm done... until pre-season.

[Hero-of-Time]

2 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

1-0 in a minute. Looks like I'm watching this one and the next even though they're dead rubbers. 180 mins and I'm done... until pre-season.

Yeah, absolute howler.

[darksnowman]

Gakkers could flourish when Arne Slot's in.

[Hero-of-Time]

4 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

Gakkers could flourish when Arne Slot's in.

I honestly thought he stole Gomez's moment but it looked to be going wide. 

[darksnowman]

1 minute ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I honestly thought he stole Gomez's moment but it looked to be going wide. 

Looked to me like VAR was going to chalk it off. So many times the VAR decisions aren't what it looks like onscreen.  This could end up 5-4 to Villa.

[Hero-of-Time]

Crazy final 10 mins. It's stuff like that why we are out of the title race.

[killthenet]

Thank fuck for Jhon Duran. 

Crazy game really, there were enough missed chances for it to have been 8-4 or something. Even though we were pretty wasteful it feels like a good point in the end, one that could prove vital - means Spurs have to win tomorrow night or we're out of reach 

[Julius]

It's been hilarious watching Bayern implode over the last few months, agreeing to have their manager step down at the end of the season despite being making it deep into the UCL, missing out on long-term prospects such as Alonso and Nagelsmann, seemingly getting denied by everyone and their mother for the treatment of their last couple of managers. 

Seriously now, just sign Mourinho. Give him a two-year contract and he'd clean up in Germany, especially with this squad, maybe just two or three signings (mainly on the wings).

Also: it'd be funny 

[Julius]

France Football (the press behind the Ballon D'Or) are thinking of retroactively awarding Robert Lewandowski the award for 2020, following it's cancellation due to COVID and the cancellation of that Ligue 1 season. Source. This comes following an interview Lewa gave a few weeks back about still wanting the award. 

Would very much be deserved, for me it would be the most deserved given to a player that isn't Messi or Ronaldo during their era – and yes, as big a fan I am of him, Messi probably deserved it more than Modric back in 2018. Think it really says something that even Messi has come out in the past and said that Lewa deserved it that season. 

Would love to see it happen, and would make for a nice piece of trivia down the line! 

[bob]

Did they actually go ahead with the vote but just not the ceremony?

Or is it just a general feeling that he should have won, but no vote took place?

 

[Julius]

43 minutes ago, bob said:

Did they actually go ahead with the vote but just not the ceremony?

Or is it just a general feeling that he should have won, but no vote took place?

No vote took place, the award and everything it entails got cancelled when the remainder of the 19/20 Ligue 1 season was cancelled (and seasons in some other countries cut short) due to COVID . 

Everyone is in agreement that that year's award belongs to him, though now that you mention it, I would be curious to see if they formalised it with a vote or just went ahead and bypassed it on this occasion. 

[bob]

No vote took place, the award and everything it entails got cancelled when the remainder of the 19/20 Ligue 1 season was cancelled (and seasons in some other countries cut short) due to COVID . 
Everyone is in agreement that that year's award belongs to him, though now that you mention it, I would be curious to see if they formalised it with a vote or just went ahead and bypassed it on this occasion. 

See, I think that just giving him the award because 'everyone agrees' will cheapen it somewhat.

I know the award is just a PR and popularity contest these days, but in this case it doesn't even have the popularity part attached to it.

No doubt if there was a vote, he would come out on top, but I think it feels wrong to just say 'yeah, he deserves it'. He's already going to have an asterisk next to his name, it would be even worse it said *no vote took place, just a general feeling that he ought to have won it

[Hero-of-Time]

Prem teams to vote next month as to whether to scrap VAR next season.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c4n1ndlknk1o

Edited May 15 by Hero-of-Time

[Nicktendo]

7 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Prem teams to vote next month as to whether to scrap VAR next season.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c4n1ndlknk1o

I hope it passes. What does it need 11 teams to agree, or does it need support of all of them?

[Hero-of-Time]

5 minutes ago, Nicktendo said:

I hope it passes. What does it need 11 teams to agree, or does it need support of all of them?

2/3rds need to agree. I can see it passing, as well it should. Thing has never worked properly.

[Happenstance]

I think I'd probably rather see them fix it rather than scrap it entirely but I guess we'll see what happens.

[Eddage]

VAR isn't the issue, the people running it is.

We're still going to have the same, if not more, errors and controversy, the only difference this will mean is there is no chance of it being overturned. For example Luis Diaz's goal, possibly the biggest incident being cited as the reason VAR shouldn't be used, was ruled out on the pitch. Yes, it was a major fuck up to not overturn the decision but the fact is with VAR gone the goal still would not have stood.

Also, just last month the Premier League approved the use of semi-automated offside so possibly the thing that VAR has struggled most with - offsides - won't be as much of an issue.

People really have rose tinted glasses about the state of the game and the quality of referring/decisions before VAR. Scrapping it would be a big step backwards.

[Julius]

3 hours ago, Eddage said:

People really have rose tinted glasses about the state of the game and the quality of referring/decisions before VAR. Scrapping it would be a big step backwards.

Ultimately I think it's an issue either way.

I agree with you that the people in charge of VAR and their training/lack of ownership over issues is what needs to be improved, but after years of the Premier League consistently getting it wrong and seeing it used generally much more efficiently and accurately in other leagues/competitions, I think this being pushed forward isn't so much a commentary on the technology itself, but rather the people on charge of it. Teams voting against it, as I see it, aren't viewing against the technology, even if a byproduct of this being passed could be it being removed for the foreseeable future; they're effectively making it a vote of no confidence in the current referring leadership and VAR overseers. 

Because I do also think it's a big step backwards if it gets removed at this point, some of the nice QOL aspects people don't think about and a lot of the right decisions being made are being overlooked in essentially returning to a Wild West approach. Semi-automated offsides like you highlight are absolutely going to be beneficial as far as I'm concerned, and I would have also liked similar checks extended to corners in the future, because the amount of times I randomly tune in and watch a replay of a shot taking a slight but meaningful deflection off a defender, or being finger-tipped over or around woodwork by a goalkeeper, only to then see a goal kick awarded is insane. 

14 hours ago, bob said:

See, I think that just giving him the award because 'everyone agrees' will cheapen it somewhat.

I know the award is just a PR and popularity contest these days, but in this case it doesn't even have the popularity part attached to it.

No doubt if there was a vote, he would come out on top, but I think it feels wrong to just say 'yeah, he deserves it'. He's already going to have an asterisk next to his name, it would be even worse it said *no vote took place, just a general feeling that he ought to have won it

I'm in total agreement, but I think any retrospective vote would also have questions raised and be a bit of a mess too, for instance the 100 journalists who comprise the voting jury from the 100 highest-ranked nations in the world – are these then going to be the same journalists who would have voted in 2020? Do they still have the full context of that season in their memory outside of a highlights reel to jog their memory? If any nation has slipped out of the Top 100 since 2020, are they still allowed to have their journalist partake and vote, or would their replacement nation in the rankings have their journalist vote? I think you end up with at least one more additional asterisk based on how the vote would be handled. 

And so on. I totally agree with you, but I guess if nothing else the questions about the vote here aren't around the winner like they should be - the purpose of the vote ultimately is to find that winner - but rather the process and who then comes 2nd, 3rd, 4th...and so on. The other things I see as nice to have – but history will remember who won, and Lewa is absolutely owed that Ballon D'Or in fairness. It's not a serious question for them to entertain which could be why they would be keen to bypass it if they decide to make it happen. 

Now, how exactly that would track in a year where there were two or more frontrunners, like in the prime years of Messi vs Ronaldo? I'm not quite sure. But hopefully nothing serious enough ever happens again that France Football takes it on themselves to revolve the centre of the football awards universe around the potential early overreaction and subsequent cancellation of the weakest of the five major leagues in Europe 

[darksnowman]

VAR itself is not a problem. Technology is used in other sports. The thing is how inept they've been at integrating it in footy. That and some sort of a clash of egos between the people doing it and the protocol they've bound themselves with. You'd think after five years of on the job learning they'd have figured it out a lot better by now. Like that Luis Diaz decision couldn't be rectified because the game had kicked off again? Give me a break. Apparently 96% of VAR decisions have been correct (up from 82% pre-VAR) but so many teams have been screwed over by that 4%. Still, I would be surprised if 7 clubs don't vote to keep it. Especially when you remember it was no better before. Did they even get letters of apology back then?

Automated offsides is a step in the right direction. Hope it doesn't take another five years to improve the rest.

[Hero-of-Time]

Kane really is cursed.

[Julius]

1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Kane really is cursed.

If he wasn't a Spurs player before, I might feel an ounce of pity for him. Maybe. Bayern are a serious mess at the moment with their board, and it's definitely thrown their season off a good bit too, I feel. We still don't even know who's coming in next season! 

Anyways, great last day of the Bundesliga season though, not only did Bayern lose 4-2, but Leverkusen have now become the first team to go an entire Bundesliga campaign unbeaten! 

They're now just 2 games away from an invincible treble season. We all saw that coming when the season started, right? 

There was also a lovely gesture from fans at the 19:04 mark (team was formed in 1904) with a minute of silence to remember those who never got the chance to witness Leverkusen lift the Bundesliga shield. 

And, elsewhere, Reus played his final game in Germany for Dortmund, scoring one last goal at the Westfalenstadion:

He's got his actual final game for them in two weeks against Madrid at Wembley. Would be pretty incredible if he could bow out with a Champions League title to his name, huh? 

Edited May 18 by Julius

[darksnowman]

And may the curse of Kane continue at the Euros, boys.