Village Idiot

As a goalie, I always left my shirt hanging out. I found it uncomfortable to tuck in with all the padding it had.

Such a beautiful music when your team forms up and it reverberates around your stadium. Still gives me the goosebumps every time. It's there for you, you can taste it... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eef69_st5oI&ab_channel=UEFA

Also, where's the Championsleaguemeter?

There was still a chance that a change of environment helped him regain his motivation. But I'm glad you didn't take that gamble. In general when a player in his 30s looks done for, there's no way back.

La Liga pondering to go on strike since the latest draft of the upcoming Sport Law has dropped the anti-Superleague clause (which would have enabled La Liga to kick clubs taking part in a non-UEFA/FIFA competition. I'm no friend of the Superleague, but I'm no fan of giving UEFA/FIFA more power than they already have. This whole thing feels like an Aliens vs Predator scenario.

Gavi won the Koppa and the Golden Boy. Still think we should just have sucked it up and play the youngsters this season instead of spending a bunch of money to still probably not win fuck all.

Off to the finals again. Gotta say this Nations League thingie is growing on me. Playing vaguely competitive games against WC-level opposition surely beats the dumb friendlies against minnows we always used to have in these dates.

I wonder why... Lewy scored a brace today. 8 in 6 now. Depay also scored a pearl of a goal, too. That's what I find so infuriating, he's incredibly talented, but only shows it in spurts.

Yeah, it's controversial over here. Mostly because of incoherent review standards. They should have a system like the NFL with a guy/team offsite reviewing plays and having the last word, setting the league's standard. But FIFA has always been fixated in making the on-the-field ref having the last word, so it will probably never happen.

Some scary scenes in the Cádiz-Barça game. A spectator had a hearth-attack and the game was stopped while they tried to save his life. He's been evacuated to a hospital and seems he'll survive. The game itself was okay. Xavi rested a bunch of players for the Bayern game, and we struggled to break them down. However, we improved in the second half (Lewy coming in helped...) and ultimately ran away 0-4, of which Lewandowski scored 1 and assisted another. Cádiz are really bad though, they look certain to go down.

It's getting a bit lost amidst all the "Lewandowski is a goal machine" stories, but Dembelé is having the best run of form since he joined us. 5 goals/assists in 5 games. His rapport with Lewandowski is pretty great, they have clicked instantly. Regarding all the "they can win the CL" talk, we'll see how we do against Bayern.

Getting thoroughly beaten by Real Madrid? I hope not!

Also, there's a rumor that Luís Enrique will leave the national team after the World Cup, and I wonder if Sevilla might want to try to keep zombie Lopetegui around until then.

Very close, but I don't think he'll be fired just yet. He still seems to have Monchi's support. Also, not many replacements available unless they swing for Pochettino, whom I think will probably want to wait out for a PL seat.

Yeah, there was no real reason not to give the 2020 award. He had a strong case for 2021 too.

Great game yesterday. I know it's a "no shit Sherlock" statement but Lewandowski is amazing. Raphinha is also getting into the flow of things and had a great game, too.

I don't think I've ever done as many signings in FM as Forest has so far...

Braithwaite to Espanyol on a free. He will be great for them to replace De Tomás. Feel the club has been a bit shitty with him, but at least he gets to stay in the city, which he clearly loves. Looks like we're getting Bellerín to replace Dest. Him and Marcos Alonso are going to be a rather meh pair of FBs but we've already spent a shitload. Hopefully Balde keeps progressing.

Arthur to Liverpool is interesting... I honestly haven't kept track of him in Italy, but over here his issue, besides lack of pace, was lack of professionalism. But he was really talented and watching your match I felt that Liverpool lacked creativity in midfield.

Looks like PEA to Chelsea is done. €12-15m (depending on the source)+Marcos Alonso. That's probably out best transfer in quite some time. Came in on a free, scored loads, and now we sell at a profit.

I despise the way the offside rule is applied. The spirit of the rule is to prevent goalhanging which would force teams to defend deep, which would be terrible. Who the fuck cares if somebody's elbow is 1 cm offside. It drives me nuts.

And that's your Haaland. Isak's terrific. Chuffed you got him, tbf.

Haaland is absurd. City are going to be unstoppable.

We haven't really had good performances in the CL for a while, though. And even most of our recent deep CL runs have been capped off by embarrassing collapses. It's a monkey we need to get off our backs.

I'm weirdly relishing it. It is very tough, but at some point we need to show we can compete against the best.