LucaAltieri

He was shite last season. Good the year before. Glad to see him get back on track (although not so happy about him doing it against Seattle). I still think Adi is more exciting player in the Timbers' side, though.

I don't/can't know how much of a factor it is, but deciding on signings by committee must slow the process down, too.

Really like the new Aviva Stadium. It has character.

Alex Neil, Advocaat, Sherwood. In that order.

Tobin Heath has good feet, too.

Partial to a bit of Christen Press, myself.

Good player. Shit goal.

I'd never actually heard of Bud Light Lime before, is it as bad as it sounds? it's never beer, but it's a cool refreshing beverage on a hot day. A poor man's Corona with lime. I thought Corona with lime was the poor man's Corona with lime?

weapons grade horseshit I repeat, this is the terriblest idea ever. Europe would immediately cut all funds for football development projects in Africa/Asia. What's the point of making them better when that just means they'll get more votes. There's no reason to assume that. There's no reason to assume that funding for football development even needs to voted on. If you're building something from scratch there's no reason why you couldn't write something on division of funds into a founding charter or similar. It's just a massive assumption you're making. If you're trying to level the field in FIFA there's no reason why you couldn't make those sort of arrangements too. Of course you could implement revenue-sharing or other equalizing measures prior to giving them more votes, but in a hypothetical environment that is sufficiently pro-UEFA to institutionalize weighted voting for these countries, how would those unamendable revenue-sharing measures pass in the first place? Also, from a purely normative perspective, why must Africa and Asia be reliant on the goodwill of the UEFA countries to represent their interests? We don't deserve an equal voice just because we're shit at football? Africa is now providing the top European leagues with a significant portion of their star players and Asia is providing a significant portion of their fans. We're all part of this enterprise and have no interest in being relegated to junior partner status just because other parts of the world happened to start kicking balls earlier than we did. If we're talking hypothetically, then I'd imagine the revenue sharing being a part of the voting weight change. Why would the small nations agree to the change otherwise? Also, as you point out, Europe gets a lot of players from other parts of the world already. Players from outside of Europe and South America are generally pretty cheap, too. It's in their interest to develop the global game already. I don't think it's automatic that a proportionately powerful UEFA would stomp on everyone else.

weapons grade horseshit I repeat, this is the terriblest idea ever. Europe would immediately cut all funds for football development projects in Africa/Asia. What's the point of making them better when that just means they'll get more votes. There's no reason to assume that. There's no reason to assume that funding for football development even needs to voted on. If you're building something from scratch there's no reason why you couldn't write something on division of funds into a founding charter or similar. It's just a massive assumption you're making. If you're trying to level the field in FIFA there's no reason why you couldn't make those sort of arrangements too.

Yes Absolute disgrace. Why? The fact that England or Spain could be outvoted by Timor Leste and Montserrat (for example) is a total joke. They have nothing to do with the game. You can't have a global governing body that only focuses on the elite players. One of the reasons Blatter is so popular is because he treats the smaller and poor nations well. Its like saying the richest guy in America's vote in an election should count for more than an ordinary working class person Yes you can, and no it's not. Football is a non-essential part of society. Votes should count after their own FIFA ranking tbh. 1-10 get so so many votes. 11-20 so so many and so on. Or weighted based on the number of clubs presided over by that particular FA. That way it's not really dependent on the results, just the size of the FA.

It was Platini in a mask this whole time.

Jesus, a world cup in Colombia. You couldn't select Livermore for that squad.

They're all based in the Americas because all of their information is coming from Chuck Blazer. Is this Chuck Blazer really facing jail despite being a rat? No idea what sort of deal he cut, if any, but they've had him for a while and he's been helping them out. Seems to have been fairly common knowledge. The guys on The Best Soccer Show have spoken about it a few times.

They're all based in the Americas because all of their information is coming from Chuck Blazer.

We've focused on buying young (which is fine) and we tend to have a small squad so we need coaches who can get younger players to kick on and make themselves useful for the first team as well as a manager who is willing to give them meaningful game time. The "buy young and sell on" policy falls down if you neglect the only investments you're making.

Hasselbaink wouldn't be the worst appointment in the world. He's inexperienced as a manager at the top level but played at the top level, which negates that somewhat. From the interviews I've seen it sounds like he demands a lot from his players, is organized, and takes the coach education side pretty seriously (as opposed to some ex-players who think they know it all and don't bother to study at all). He's played pretty direct and aggressive with Burton from what I've seen/read but that might be in part due to playing in League 2 than any sort of philosophy he might have. That said, there are better options. I'd still be hitting up Juande Ramos if I were able to make the decision.

He's won plenty of silverware, mind. A weird career he's had. Yup. Did a decent job at Spurs. Took over a team in the relegation zone, got them mid-table, won a cup, respectable showing in Europe. And he didn't have complete control of transfers. Might be expensive but I think he's the best fit of what's available.

Juande Ramos.

22:30

How do you want to define "dead?" What dataset should I take as a benchmark?

See the above post. As it's near impossible to separate the individual from the context of his team, role, competition they're playing in, etc I think it's risky business giving too much importance to these numbers when comparing them side by side. Statistical analysis has a role to play in football, but you've got to be comparing like for like otherwise the numbers are meaningless. A great example is comparing Demba Ba's pre-Cisse and post-Cisse scoring records with us. If you remove all context, it looks like Ba's form completely dropped. You need the context of knowing he was being played in a wide position to figure out what's really going on. Another example would be Jozy Altidore's scoring record in Holland. The numbers alone are meaningless without context. You can't compare Messi's all-Barca career to Ronaldo's career looking just at the numbers, which is why I'm focusing on their current talent, attitudes, performances. Actually, those stats were derived in context, the article had a whole segment trying to separate Messi's numbers from the impact Barca has had on his numbers. Not to be a jerk, but try reading it during halftime, I'd be curious what you think afterwards. I'll take a look in a few, see what they came up with. But it'll have to be some work of genius to separate out the fact they've played for completely different clubs at different levels, in different countries for their entire careers. Barcelona and Madrid are in the same country for the time being at least But they are different clubs. There's not a single like-for-like factor in their careers. Guess we can't say Ronaldo is better than Dean Whitehead then. We can, because when you add in the context Ronaldo is a better player. If you look at the technique, fitness, etc it's no contest. Stats only work in apples to apples comparisons. For the rest you have to use your brain. Ronaldo, having won less, scored less, assisted less, looked worse, achieved less internationally and been less critically acclaimed is a better player? Bizarre. Possibly you saw some 'context' in the king that we all missed for so long. That's quite the distortion of my premise. You can't compare two sets of numbers derived in different ways and expect a meaningful result. It's basic science and remains true whether you choose to accept it or not. Messi may well be the "better" (whatever that means, given how subjective it is) player. I said as much. But it's not because numbers say so.

See the above post. As it's near impossible to separate the individual from the context of his team, role, competition they're playing in, etc I think it's risky business giving too much importance to these numbers when comparing them side by side. Statistical analysis has a role to play in football, but you've got to be comparing like for like otherwise the numbers are meaningless. A great example is comparing Demba Ba's pre-Cisse and post-Cisse scoring records with us. If you remove all context, it looks like Ba's form completely dropped. You need the context of knowing he was being played in a wide position to figure out what's really going on. Another example would be Jozy Altidore's scoring record in Holland. The numbers alone are meaningless without context. You can't compare Messi's all-Barca career to Ronaldo's career looking just at the numbers, which is why I'm focusing on their current talent, attitudes, performances. Actually, those stats were derived in context, the article had a whole segment trying to separate Messi's numbers from the impact Barca has had on his numbers. Not to be a jerk, but try reading it during halftime, I'd be curious what you think afterwards. I'll take a look in a few, see what they came up with. But it'll have to be some work of genius to separate out the fact they've played for completely different clubs at different levels, in different countries for their entire careers. Barcelona and Madrid are in the same country for the time being at least But they are different clubs. There's not a single like-for-like factor in their careers. Guess we can't say Ronaldo is better than Dean Whitehead then. We can, because when you add in the context Ronaldo is a better player. If you look at the technique, fitness, etc it's no contest. Stats only work in apples to apples comparisons. For the rest you have to use your brain. Christ. He didn't play for Barca either.

See the above post. As it's near impossible to separate the individual from the context of his team, role, competition they're playing in, etc I think it's risky business giving too much importance to these numbers when comparing them side by side. Statistical analysis has a role to play in football, but you've got to be comparing like for like otherwise the numbers are meaningless. A great example is comparing Demba Ba's pre-Cisse and post-Cisse scoring records with us. If you remove all context, it looks like Ba's form completely dropped. You need the context of knowing he was being played in a wide position to figure out what's really going on. Another example would be Jozy Altidore's scoring record in Holland. The numbers alone are meaningless without context. You can't compare Messi's all-Barca career to Ronaldo's career looking just at the numbers, which is why I'm focusing on their current talent, attitudes, performances. Actually, those stats were derived in context, the article had a whole segment trying to separate Messi's numbers from the impact Barca has had on his numbers. Not to be a jerk, but try reading it during halftime, I'd be curious what you think afterwards. I'll take a look in a few, see what they came up with. But it'll have to be some work of genius to separate out the fact they've played for completely different clubs at different levels, in different countries for their entire careers. Barcelona and Madrid are in the same country for the time being at least But they are different clubs. There's not a single like-for-like factor in their careers. Guess we can't say Ronaldo is better than Dean Whitehead then. We can, because when you add in the context Ronaldo is a better player. If you look at the technique, fitness, etc it's no contest. Stats only work in apples to apples comparisons. For the rest you have to use your brain/eyes.