Kaizero

Lampard actively, at least, appears to be wanting to become a manager and appears to be keeping up to date with tactics and visiting other clubs to learn from other managers. I put "appears" in italics because for all I know he could be like the pair you mentioned, Gerrard and Rooney, who doesn't even appear to be doing anything other than relying on getting gigs because they used to play footy themselves once upon a time - not caring that playing and managing are two completely different things

No-one asked, but my personality type won't allow me to not explain Bodø/Glimt's weird name The club was formed as "FK Glimt" in the early 1900s when football was still mainly played regionally, not nationally, in Norway - which was fair enough given the vast distances to travel during a time when mass transportation mainly took place by boat However, a few years after after WW2, Norway got its first national league pyramid and it became known that a club from the Trondheim region also had the name "FK Glimt", and were formed before the Bodø team with the same name. So they changed their name to "FK Bodø-Glimt" to differentiate the teams, them changing their name even though being the "bigger" club was simply due to respecting the fact the other club called Glimt were named so first. Including the hyphen was to ensure people remember saying both words when referencing the club, as "Bodø" and "Glimt" are both two other, independent, clubs. HOWEVER As betting on football became increasingly popular in Norway, the third and final change to their name took place; changing "FK Bodø-Glimt" to "FK Bodø/Glimt". Now, one might ask oneself "why bother making such a small, seemingly unnecessary, change to their club name"? The reason was as simple as it's genuinely a bit dumb; when you bet on football matches, your betting slip used hyphens to differentiate between the home and away sides, so they changed the "-" to "/" so there'd be less confusion at the bookies when bets were placed on matches that seemingly were played by three teams, for example "Bodø-Glimt-Rosenborg"

They bought him from B/G and then shipped him back. Another piece of "evidence" for my theory about a manager implementing a tactical "system" where every player knows the exact "responsibility" and "expectation" for them when playing in a certain position being the best strategy a football manager can utilize. Pretty much every single player that's been sold from B/G have came crawling back with their tail between their legs after failing at a "bigger club" in a "better league". B/G players don't play anywhere near as well for the national side as they do for B/G as well, mainly due to the players not really being as good as the tactical system B/G utilizes makes them look like being First time I realized the above was when B/G thrashed Roma 6-1 after the press had been expecting, and building up to, the opposite happening - because B/G's four "best" players were all unavailable for the match. In the end, the four replacements (mainly youth team players) played just as well as the "best" players did in their positions and B/G's play and style didn't seem affected at all from "missing" their "best" players. B/G implements the same tactics as the first team does when it comes to style of play and positional/role responsibilities and expectations across all levels, starting at the most junior level, all the way through their youth sides and reserves. Replace any first team player with an available B/G player playing the same position and the team as a whole remains pretty much unaffected.

It's a safe bet to assume the likes of Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, England, Turkey, Sweden, Norway and Romania will be able to finish top two in their WC qualifying groups. If that turns out to be the case, San Marino didn't just win their Nations League group, they booked a ticket to the WC play-offs.

They don't make 'em like him anymore My favorite trivia about Collina is how he was the only active Serie A referee during the match fixing scandal that the match fixers couldn't turn, no matter how much money they tried to buy him with. When money didn't work, their next move was to pay a player to "accidentially" tackle and injure Collina, allowing for a bribed referee to ref the games he'd miss because of that injury... they got no takers, as even though they'd been bribed to fix matches already and seemingly had no fear of being caught doing that, they all feared Collina so much that nobody dared go near him

I feel like whoever allowed the drug addict walking about SJP, after being sent to the club by the dole office to get a week's worth of work training under his belt, to pose for our new merch might've been on some drugs themselves After looking at those three pics lined up... I mean... That's just photoshop at this point, right? I'm not blind? Not even Zoolander could keep his Blue Steel as identical as that bloke would be able to if it wasn't just one single picture of him

Well done to @Pata's U21 lads, no way we get back from 5-1 down to qualify for the 2025 EC in the reverse fixture. Finland's just done a perfect example of "it doesn't matter if you dominate the game if you can't score any goals"

You basically just helped my point by giving more "evidence" for the game being gone there, to be fair Ødegaard and Haaland aren't old, they're both almost billionaires at 24 and 25 years of age. Peresic is the youngest of the three players you mentioned, but still 1o years older than Haaland and Ødegaard. Those ten years may not sound like they should matter, but how kids today watch, and think, about football is completely alien to me - and I am Peresic's age I think I saw a stat about the average age of a season ticket holder 10 years ago, vs now, which coincidentally fits this post perfectly. But yeah, if someone first told you what the average age of a season ticket holder at a club in the top four divisions in England was, ten years ago - before proceeding to ask you to guess what the average age is today... would you *logically* have dared to answer an age that wasn't fairly close to what you were informed the average was ten years ago? Because if you would've done that, you'd be mistaken. The average age now, compared to ten years ago, is almost exactly ten years older - kids today doesn't have the attention span to go watch football. They can barely maintain interest watching it at home, where they'll certainly be diverting their attention to their phone screen for the better part of those 90 minutes than they do watching the actual game. I saw a report that kids aged 15 or less no longer watch matches on TV unless it's a match of utmost importance. Instead, they watch a TikTok with the most important highlights after the game has finished. Even if they play some football themselves I find it hard to believe that anyone, really, would believe that those kids - the same kids throwing a hissy fit if the TikTok highlights video even just dares to be any longer than 3 to 5 minutes - would grow up to become professional athletes that were motivated by their love for the game instead of the paycheck? I've been doing agent work on the side for almost two years now, so I've dealt with a fair amount of up and coming footballers from all around the world. The players you mentioned were kids when war ravaged the Balkan nations, which in turn makes me 100% believe that if a club/club manager had even just hinted to Dzeko that he should avoid playing for Bosnia, he'd knock them the fuck out. The Balkan countries are one of the few countries in Norway that still runs on national pride. The only youth players I've spoken to that felt like they would give all their blood, sweat and tears playing for their country - for which they wouldn't be paid - even though a club that pays them millions had asked them to consider it. Their motivation being personal achievement, winning trophies and making a name for themselves in the sport. It's literally the only country whose youth players haven't blatantly just told me that they don't care about what club they go to, as long as the club they sign for is the club that offered to pay them the most money. Putting which country it was in a spoiler so anyone that wants to guess before finding out get a chance to do that: If this trend continues, the players I've spoken to will be around 25 to 28 years old when we get to the 2030 WC in Saudi Arabia. If their players don't end up joining the current treng amongst youth players, they'll probably win that WC as their team will be the only one that actually care about winning it for the glory and honor it'd bring them. All the other country's players will phone it in because they can't believe they even agreed to giving up their holiday to go play football without even getting paid over 100k per week to do it.

Anniversary of what? by the looks of it, they're nine years too early for a centennial:

100% this! I'd not even mind him using the excuse he pulled today as a reason to stay behind in Norway, sitting out the Slovenia match. That choice could be framed by him as the captain "having faith in the team to do the business", yet still leave the window open for him to either start against the Kazakhs, or start on the bench to either sit that match out as well if we cruise to victory - or enter the pitch when/if needed as a "supersub", as what that would mean to the players on the pitch would be a massive motivating factor for the remainder of the game. They'd have been told the intention for Ødegaard would be to sit out the match, so when they see him get ready to come on - what they'd perceive would be their captain choosing to play through the "pain" to make sure Norway wins. It's even more infuriating once you stop to think about how well everything could be spun if they weren't idiots, just his presence in itself - putting the needs of the nation he's been chosen to lead above his own "needs"? Getting subbed on as a supersub, changing the pre-match plans because Norway appeared to need a lift? It's a shitshow. If Haaland hadn't acted like the biggest fucking spoilt brat when he filled in for Ødegaard as captain in the last two matches, I might have lost my shit less dramatically over this. But everything wrong with modern football keeps happening over and over and over again and I just... I despair, I feel saddened, I feel like my favorite sport doesn't exist anymore - actual footballers that at least somewhat care and gave a shit just doesn't exist anymore.

It's not the fact he chickened out of playing that grinds my gears the most, it's that he, the captain of the team - left the team to travel back to London, telling the press he intended to relax on his sofa and recuperate for the rest of the week. Even if you don't intend to play, when you've already traveled out to meet up with team... stick the fuck around and motivate your teammates as their fucking captain. Be a on the subs list for both matches, with the understanding that you won't get subbed in unless the match has become a defcon one situation or similar. It's about just taking basic responsibility for your given role as captain of the team... At worst, sit out the Slovenia away fixture and don't travel down there with the team tomorrow night. However, given that the fucker owns an even larger and better apartment in Oslo than the one he has in London, the fucker could just as well relax on his sofa there until the squad returns on Friday. Then he could join up with them during the day and relax in his fucking sofa the rest of the day. And, if the standings make it clear that Norway needs o win the last Nations League match against Kazaksthan to win their league, grow a pair of fucking balls, take responsibility and lead your fucking team out on the pitch to annihilate the fuckers. Play through the fucking pain, you fucking managed it extremely well for 90 minutes plus extra time this weekend, as well as half the match against Inter in a few days before that. Between this weekend's match and the Boratstan match on Sunday, you'll have been able to fucking sit and relax on your designer fucking sofa for an entire week. Blame UEFA and FIFA as much as you want, look me in the eyes and tell me Shearer would've done the same as Ødegaard ahead of two crucial matches to have a chance at qualifying for the World Cup? Or that Bryan Robson or Kevin Keegan would? All I see is that modern footballers don't even care about getting the chance to fight for glory in major tournaments, I'd not be surprised if the majority of professional footballers today don't actually enjoy the sport they play - for them it's just a job like any other. When players revealed that they didn't care about football even though they were among the best players in the world a decade or two ago, it sent shockwaves through the media... "how can he not enjoy football when he's so good at it?!?" Now, what used to be a shocking reveal, feels like the norm. I'd be more shocked if a player today said in an interview that they are genuinely passionate followers of the sport.

When that match against Kazakhstan most likely will end up being a decisive factor between playing at the WC in 2026 or staying home, again, you'd probably think otherwise - and I genuinely believe you would, because I doubt you are a self-centred prick like Ødegaard.

Up until Haaland and Ødegaard disgraced the captain's armband, international football was my only "safe space" left in modern football. Even though the players playing at the major tournaments now are multi-millionares, some bordering billionaires, when they put on national kit and went out to play football - the glory of winning the tournament remained, in essence, the only thing to play for. At a WC, EC, Copa or any other major worldwide or continental tournament, the players on the pitch want to be victorious so badly you can actually feel it through the TV screens (or from the pitch if you're someone that could afford traveling to a tournament and afford the ticket prices ). In a World Cup, even the minnow nations have a semblance of hope that they could put together a long enough streak of wins to take them to eternal glory and etch their names forever in the history books. International football was the only bastion left in modern football where the players give their all to represent their "hometown club", not for untold riches, but for the chance of experiencing true glory. Putting on your nation's jersey used to mean something, now even the fucking captain of a national team tell the country to go fuck itself because they want to chill out on their couch in London watching reruns of old Friends episodes instead. This was my watershed moment, football's gone and it's never coming back.

I wish Norway had an actual football manager as their manager in times like these Martin Ødegaard has just withdrawn from the national team squad for the upcoming two Nations League matches, telling the press he made the decision because he wants to focus on healing from his injury. In theory, that reason is all well and good, if it wasn't for the fact he had just finished 90 minutes for Arsenal two days ago without showing any fatigue or issues related to his injury, not to mention the fact he's the team captain. Haaland stepped in as captain for the last two matches, crowning that honor by ghosting the press and refusing to talk to them after Norway's 5-1 loss to Austria - instead forcing David Møller Wolfe, the defender that made some big errors allowing Austria to round up the score, to go talk to them. What a captain... instead of protecting a player younger than him that fucked up by taking responsibility and talking to the press, the huffy fucking overgrown baby bullied the last player that needed to meet the press to go face them To Wolfe's credit, he gave one of the better post-match interviews I've seen a player directly responsible for their team getting annihilated on the pitch, give. Meanwhile, our two biggest profiles - our team captain and vice-captain - show no leadership skills whatsoever and has no problem throwing the rest of the team under the bus if it benefits them. And some people wonder why Norway hasn't qualified for a major tournament since the EC back in year2000? Doing what Haaland did as acting team captain should make a manager state that the player will not get to put on the armband again for the foreseeable future, the same goes for Ødegaard and his basic bitch excuses. The least he could do as team captain, even if him and the coaching staff decide to rest him for one or both matches, would be to actually fucking join up with the team and infuse some morale in the other players. I'm so fed up with modern football and modern footballers, especially knowing that the manager and coaching staff will make all kinds of excuses for the selfish motherfucker instead of stripping him of the armband as punishment for abandoning his teammates. Just had to get this rant about fucking Norway off my chest, no matter if this place isn't exactly the most proper place to go off on a rant about the national team of a nation that maybe jonly 3-4 members on here are from or care exists

Can't be arsed to read the last few pages in search of an answer to what I'm curious to know, but did Coote talk down Liverpool, the club, or just Klopp, the manager? If only the latter, I feel it'd be quite harsh for this to end the guy's career as a ref. We're all allowed to dislike certain individuals no matter what job we have, as long as we do the job well But, on that note, has anyone come up with actual examples of Coote seemingly reffing Liverpool matches in favor of the team they play against? If so, is that a recurring happenstance with Coote or could it be random? As in Coote being a bad ref in certain games to the degree it seems like he's favoring one of the teams on the pitch? If he went after Liverpool, the club, I fully understand and support his career as a PL ref being over. If he "only" went after Klopp, especially given the timing of the video (as I've understood it the video was filmed in the evening of the same day as he had reffed a Liverpool match where Klopp had been his usual whiny bitchy self and directed all of it towards Coote, both during the match itself but also ripping into him in the post-match interview? Appreciate anyone bother to give me a run-down of the actual facts and story, only read bits and pieces here and there about it so far and can't seem to find a proper overview of what's been said, in what context and if the guy has shown any recurring dislike of Liverpool that could be seen in how he reffed matches involving them.

Whilst FIFA should have made it clear what would qualify the host country's extra addition to the tournament waaaaay earlier than they ended up doing, I much prefer the league winner to be the team awarded the spot rather than whichever club lucks out in the stupid play-off cup system they insist on having just because the sport is played in the US If they actually followed the same approach to national league set-ups as the rest of the world, Inter Miami would have won the MLS after the season was over. As is, the best team over 38 games most times don't end up the final victors as cup games make upsets more easy accessible than when the winner is decided by whichever team has the highest final points tally of all the teams competing in the league at the end of a full season of play. Giving the spot to the MLS winner would be the same as giving the spot to a random cup winner instead of the best team over an entire season in that nation.

From an interview with So Foot that he gave after he'd scored his 6th goal for Bordeaux in 4 matches, with him being the only Bordeaux player to score in those four and being just one of three Bordeaux players to score at all in eight matches so far this season. Ever since they signe Carroll, they've gone undefeated. First three matches before Carroll signed had them 0-2-1, five matches after he signed they've gone 3-2-0. Unsure if Carroll played in their most recent match or not, but if he did, his scoring streak came to and end in that match. Think I read something about him not playing due to personal reasons (apparently he's split with his longtime fiance and had to go get his stuff before she threw it away ), so his scoring streak might still be alive and well. That said, he spoke about the transfer to Liverpool in the interview, relevant bits below:

Cheers, all For those interested, I've expanded a bit on my initial post - but instead of continuing here I posted it in the more appropriate thread for actually talking about it in chat: https://newcastle-online.org/topic/27834-experiences-of-depression-and-anxiety/page/217/#comment-8212223

Bit of a late bump, but I kinda went AWOL from the Internet a few days before this was happening and didn't inform anyone why that was. So this felt like the most relevant thread to post an explanation in. In short, I was informed that a tumor had been found in my brain (not cancerous), which given it's position apparently was the reason for why I've had a few years of absolute shit health as it's been fucking up the natural release of cortisol in my body, making my cortisol levels be dangerously high. If untreated, it would always be a terminal diagnosis. But in 8 out of 10 cases, it's treatable - with the 2 out of 10 cases that aren't treatable being cases where it was discovered "too late". Not "too late" with regards to theoretically being treatable, but "too late" for the doctor's to do everything they need to do to prepare for essentially amputating the part of the brain where the tumor is to avoid it fucking up the release of cortisol - meaning the "terminal" part of it being untreated just was too damned close for 2 out of 10 people after it was discovered. As they looked through my medical journal, that became their main fear as incident after incident kept popping up in my journal, going back several years, that were most likely caused by the tumor - meaning the clock was ticking. So, I went AWOL from the online world and the offline world as I ended up thrown into an existential crisis and started "sorting out my affairs" in case everything would end badly. However, earlier today they did this: Which also means today is the first day in what feels like ages that I had any form of motivation to actually plan ahead in life again and not drown myself in work I felt I had to sort out in case I were to drop dead without warning. Means I have to take cortisol pills every day for the rest of my life to replace the cortisol the "thing" (I don't remember the name 😅) affected by the tumor originally had the responsibility of releasing. But I mean, certain death at a random point in time, or taking a pill once a day? Feels like a fair trade-off by removing that "thing" Either way, I know I might have let a few people down with my AWOL-ness out of the blue. But at least those I might have let down now know why it happened 🙏🏼

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DA1JzZuvNcH/

For the exactly zero people interested in me following up on this post, this was the end result: I mean...

Unsure if there's already a topic with a similar premise to this, but thought it could be interesting to have a thread about the biggest* club rivalries worldwide. Both for just general discussion about club derbies, but perhaps also to share stories of having attend some of the big ones. Should a similar threads exist, feel free to merge * The derbies included in the below list have been put on it based on a single "qualifying" factor, which was wheter or not the derby has been considered big enough for Wikipedia to give the derby its own article. One day I'll probably get bored enough to sort the derbies by nation so it'll be easier to navigate to the right one if anyone for some reason decided to check this list instead of just googling whatever derby they wanted to read about If anyone here has attended multiple major derbies in different nations, please make a post listing the ones you've been at - if only to figure out which N-O member has attend the largest amount of the world's "biggest" derbies.

The guy has played for three out of the four different nations he is eligible to represent so far in his career and he's only 20, just need to add an appearance for Nigeria to complete the task of representing enough nations to fill a group at the World Cup.