ponsaelius

Yep this is their major problem. Generally all good players but a lack of pace and energy. Regularly have committed to only playing a midfield two. Compare that to their midfield in the CL final of 2015: Pirlo/Pogba/Vidal/Marchisio

I think it's probably only Napoli they can overhaul at this point since Milan also have H2H over them now (as do Atalanta). Juventus have Sassuolo and Inter next to play and finish with Bologna. Napoli have Udinese, Fiorentina and Verona. So all teams with nothing to play for essentially. I don't trust Napoli to finish the job with 3/3 - but equally I am sure Conte and Inter will want to rub salt in the wounds.

Ronaldo has scored 27 goals in the league this season. Against Inter, Milan, Napoli and Atalanta he has scored 1 in 7. He also has 2 assists in an entire league campaign. This is in a side built entirely around serving him the ball. But this is no slant on him. At the end of the day he has just turned 36. For a player of that age he's doing more than fine. The question is why successful club with an established dynasty and economic advantage has deliberately hamstrung themselves in this way. One can only ask Agnelli.

The entire point is the Ronaldo signing has caused this. Paying him 31 million euros a year (this is Atalanta's entire squad more or less) has meant they couldn't afford to build a proper team and experimented with cheaper managerial recruitment. It all stems from making a hugely expensive signing for marketing reasons rather than trying to build a team. Historically Juventus has always been a club which made superstars and generally had no problem selling them. Signing Ronaldo was a shift from this historic policy to align with their rebrand. It's been a total disaster in every way except for Ronaldo's wallet.

Pre-Ronaldo 2015 - Serie A, Coppa Italia, CL Final 2016 - Serie A, Coppa Italia, CL Last 16 (Bayern) 2017 - Serie A, Coppa Italia, CL Final 2018 - Serie A, Coppa Italia, CL QF (Real Madrid) Post-Ronaldo Signing 2019 - Serie A, CL QF (Ajax) 2020 - Serie A, CL Last 16 (Lyon) 2021 - 5th, Coppa Italia final tbc, CL Last 16 (Porto) That is a clear and marked decline since they signed Ronaldo both domestically and in Europe. Pirlo or no Pirlo. Signing him for 100 million euros, and putting him on a 31 million euro contract (the next highest paid player in Serie A is 7 million euros), has completely hamstrung their squad building. This has been to the detriment of the team. Whatever the merits of Ronaldo as a player at 36 there is absolutely no doubt that as a team the signing has ultimately made them worse.

Buying Ronaldo is probably the worst move they've made tbh. At least he's gonna win Capocannoniere at the third time of asking, though. Money well spent.

I think you mean funny. He'll probably leave anyway if they miss out.

Other way around for me but yeah I've definitely found it worthwhile. Saves scrambling around for a stream and always runs nice and smooth. The weekly magazine/highlight shows for both leagues on catch up are good too.

Agree that it sucks how little Euro football is on TV but I've got to say I think Premier Sports is decent value and has loads of Serie A and La Liga on. The app on the phone allows you to cast straight to the TV which is great. I'll be getting rid for the off-season like.

That Juve - Milan game is the most I've enjoyed a match in ages.

Genuinely an interesting move to be fair. About time he went to a club where he could be a bit of an underdog again. In the modern game that suits him far more. Should find it easier to get the buy in from players.

Bloody hell.

One thing that would help in the Champions League would be just getting rid of group stages and making it straight knockout from the beginning. Maybe have some qualifying rounds, and some degree of seeding, but otherwise have jeopardy in place from the very beginning in August. Perhaps even get rid of the two legs and make it single ties with huge home advantage. You'd get far more upsets and make it far more likely that outside teams could go on runs through the competition. The TV money would probably fall as the amount of games, and indeed big games, would be reduced. But that's hardly the end of the world. The TV money that is generated could then be divided more evenly. When going to teams from smaller countries a percentage (say 50%) of it should go direct to that country's domestic league rather than all to the team - to prevent the issue of the CL money allowing them to monopolise their league. APOEL got the the quarter finals in 2012 and have then won seven titles in a row off the back of it. The problem with all of the above is it would be enormously unpopular with the owners of the big clubs and likely accelerate any further push towards a super league.

No VAR is the main one. The biggest assault to the game ever conceived and terrible for so many different reasons. It needs getting rid of ASAP. The other stuff, the structural and financial inequalities across Europe, I'm just really not sure how to fix. I honestly don't really love the idea of financial fair play rules and salary caps as it removes the competitive advantage of benefactor owners improving teams and gatecrashing the established order. I know people hate Chelsea/City for example - but there's a strange dichotomy at play that these kind of clubs do actually upset the established order of big clubs and make things more competitive and interesting. This was the same when Blackburn won the league and we were challenging - and indeed Serie A was ultra competitive for decades in a large part because of the amount of spendthrift owners they had taking over their own local provincial clubs. The main problem for me is that the collective TV deals have massively centralised power in the biggest 5 leagues. Countries with over 40 million people, lots of big clubs and ability to sell TV rights collectively. This has centralised all of the money and all the best players in these leagues. European giants, or even relatively big clubs, who just happen to be in smaller countries have been completely cut out of the Champions League. Unless you can have a miracle generation of players, or you're an Eastern European team with an oligarch who can put together a competitive side, you're not getting anywhere. And even when you do those players will be gone in a year. You can't really fix the above inequality without merging countries league systems together and giving the critical mass to make them competitive. Or going towards some kind of Europe wide league that is actually equitable (not the kind of closed shop cash grab proposed). And in doing so you obliterate the history of the game in these countries. So it's not really got an easy solution.

I find his teams awful to watch on the whole but you can't argue with his domestic record. It's extremely impressive.

Inter champions.

This entire pandemic has completely shattered my previously unwavering confidence in scientific rigour. A significant amount of these supposed public health experts and are nothing but self-aggrandising, attention seeking monomaniacs. Couple them with a media industry now completely driven by the need for clicks and this has created an abominable alliance of doom. A real shame as it taints the phenomenal achievements of scientific expertise in producing remarkable life saving vaccines on a massive scale in such a short period of time.

Juventus down to 5th as it stands

Brilliant from Lille. Hopefully they can finish the job.

Basically a combination of sacrificing the peak years of his career to service Ronaldo's goal record and also being ostracized from the national team.

It's pretty hilarious that on the one hand Perez is trying to claim that the Super League is the only way these clubs will be able to afford to sign big players, while the the Super League cartel was also trying to argue that its also the only way it will make football more financially stable. It's such an absurdist contradiction that reflects the conflicting motivations of the clubs involved. The thing is if none of these clubs can afford to buy anybody then this is a good thing! You then either cut your cloth accordingly or you go into financial meltdown. It would result in a huge deflation of transfer fees and wages. Either way this levels the playing field and well-run clubs might have a chance to actually have a genuine go at winning the Premier League, Serie A or La Liga. This would be great for all fans and for football in general. However it would obviously be bad for these clubs which have essentially built a massive ponzi scheme in order to keep up with the joneses. It's such a desperate and cynical power grab to save themselves and attempt to freeze football in time.

Agnelli is definitely the worst of the lot of them. You can understand it from the Americans, sheiks and oligarchs. You can even understand Perez as an industrialist and relative latecomer in life to football ownership. Agnelli is from a long family dynasty of running Juventus - it's absolutely scandalous that he is such a driving figure.

Been trying to get a feel for how fans of the European clubs feel about this. A poll of Juve fans on their forum showed clear support: https://www.vecchiasignora.com/topic/353397-sondaggio-ufficiale-vs-favorevoli-o-contrari-alla-superlega/ Run it through a Google Translate to get a further idea. Just a disgraceful club supported, in large, by gloryhunting arseholes.

It's interesting how easy it's crumbled. I think it was clearly a very uneasy alliance of motivations. A mixture of: - US owners wanting a US sports model they can control and ensure long term financial growth without the current risk. Clearly the main architects behind the whole thing. (Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Milan particularly). - Clubs terrified about the finances and level of debt they have right now and no idea how to service it (Barca for example in particular but most of them to some degree. Inter's owners probably see an easier sale). - Clubs fearful of the domination of the PL and seeing their own position in the game either at threat or in long term decline for a while (the big Spanish and Italian clubs) - Those that have been brought in to make up the numbers and have jumped at the chance (Atletico, Spurs, Arsenal for example). - Those that have joined even though they don't need the money but had a fear of missing out (e.g. Chelsea and Man City) - Those who have a big grudge with UEFA because of FFP (Man City) - Finally - some of it is just a work of pure Machiavellian evil (see Perez and Agnelli) You can basically put all of them in a few categories but not them all. Once it's been pushed the unified front has clearly collapsed like a deck of cards.

'Moving games early to suit Asian audiences'. Chinese time is GMT+8 and Korean time is GMT+9. For that to work you'd have to kick games off at midday on a weekday. UEFA don't just have an obligation to create a 'product'. They're a sporting body responsible for running every level of the game across the continent. Their job is not to maximise the amount of money in the game to the fucking detriment of everything else.