Village Idiot

Marca has released the top selling shirts by club. They don't provide an overall ranking although they say that Cronaldo's the overall top seller. Real Madrid: 1. Cristiano Ronaldo 2. Özil 3. Kaká (heh) FC Barcelona (no Fàbregas, surprising) 1. Messi 2. David Villa (surprised by this) 3. Iniesta 4. Xavi Athletic Club: 1. Llorente 2. Javi Martínez Atlético de Madrid: 1. Falcao 2. Diego 3. Reyes 4. Turan Valencia CF: 1. Soldado 2. Piatti 3. Canales Villarreal (apparently personalised tees vastly outsell player shirts): 1. Rossi 2. Cani 3. Nilmar Málaga: 1. Cazorla 2. Van Nistelrooy 3. Baptista Sevilla: 1. Kanouté 2. Negredo Espanyol: 1. Dani Jarque (wow) Mallorca: 1. Laudrup

:mackems: Is nobody else in stitches at this? The guy with the mic is taking the piss in some ironic hipster way, surely?

If football was like gridiron you would sub him in to take the set pieces and that's it.

Levante have only paid 400k in transfer fees in 4 years, iirc. Their transfer policy has been very astute given that fact, they are getting the best out of veterans like Ballesteros, Del Horno, Munúa, Farinós, Barkero, Venta, Juanlu... players that were all very promising 10 years ago but never quite got there but are flourishing at the moment.

What will happen is that sports rights will become less valuable, which should mean smaller TV contracts for clubs. A key to media financing is territory-by-territory sales. You get a much higher amount selling rights to countries one-by-one than a larger entity like the entire EU. This applies to sports but also to movies (American independent film lives on European rights sales, a little known fact) and television. My expectation is that will force producers to reduce costs, and in the case of sports, clubs will be able to charge less for their contracts.

Just read the sentence today. As somebody who works in the media what can I say: WOAH. This is huge, huge and will effect not only sports, but all media business throughout the world (Europe is a key media market). It will suck for people like me (although one has to wait to see how this is applied since a single market for media content looks easy on concept but hard on practice), mind, but should lead to greater good for the consumer as rights prices should become lower.

I have not been watching Liverpool, how's he been doing? I'm surprised that given the problems at LB in the national team since Capdevila retired he hasn't got a look yet.

Sorry but it just gets under my skin for someone to suggest we aren't as passionate as fans of other clubs because they're XX years old and football only started getting a fair go in places like America 15 - 20 years ago and only 4 years ago in Australia. I appriciate you support ... but I can't imagine me to support club which is franchise. What if this club change name, colours (for sponsors) or change city. The clubs that have moved/ceased to be have done so due to lack of support. The clubs shown in this thread are not likely to suffer the same fate. The 'change colours for sponsors' point (NYRB) is a different matter altogether, and is not something that only US teams have endured. I'm fairly sure that some Austrian club had three names at one point, on account of the sponsor. Dunno about 3 names but... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_Red_Bull_Salzburg I don't really know their history so much. I did go to a game. It's more of a tourist thing than a football club. They draw miserable crowds while in one of biggest towns in the world, a town that has a very large football following. The reason is that they failed to engage the local fans since the club's inception and almost every decision going forward (failure to incorporate the Cosmos legacy, using the Giants stadium, selling the club to RB...) has made things progressively worse, resulting in the several attempts to creative alternative New York clubs. The main problem that has doomed the club since its inception, in my opinion, is the fact that they tried to cater more to the "eurosnobs" (people that watch and follow European football in the US) than the grassroots football fans in town. Eurosnobs will sit and watch the Premier League instead of going to New Jersey to see Juan Pablo Ángel trying to find his legs. Red Bull has tried hard to win people back, the new stadium is a beauty, but having your football club named after an energy drink... people that grew up watching the New York Cosmos will never accept that.

NYRB are a disgrace. They have no support in the city, and they have brought it over themselves to be frank.

Montage of Cádiz fans, my favorite bit is 0:13 with the fans and the assistant ref.

Sometimes I wish some Balkan club won an European trophy again, how mental they would go over there I just can't imagine.

Sevilla fans signing their anthem (Andalusian fans are generally the best in Spain)

Removing the terraces has killed support in Spain, too. Remember the atmospheres when I was younger, nothing compared to the crap we get now in most places.

Somebody posted this some time ago: an U12 match between Spurs and Lech Poznan. Lech Cup 2010 (U-12) - Supporters Lech Poznań

He directs the masses allright indeed. Gotta say the songs he sings are woefully inadequate for a kid his age too, but he's class

Saw this video in the Spanish television the other day, and thought we could have a thread where people put videos of great singing and other fan displays from throughout the world. These are Rayo Vallecano fans. The kid, Iván, is a bit of a legend among them, does this gig before the travelling for an away game.

Jonas' goal has been making the rounds in our telly too, Messi-esque. First time I see a report about Newcastle that isn't related to José Enrique or in a "Newcastle, man, they're so shit nowadays" bend.

Espanyol being unsurprisingly shit. This is one of the two times in a year I can take solace on a Real Madrid win at least.

Made quite a few good signings though they will struggle once they all finish their loans. Work well as a team. A lot like Newcastle last season pre January with nicer football tbh. Levante have all my sympathies since they do what they can, but their football isn't certainly "nice". They have kicked their way to the top so far.

They want the least amount of games possible being played at the same time, to maximise TV viewers, so they have created more kickoff times throughout the weekend, instead of having the bulk of games being played Saturday/Monday at 5/6pm as it has always been. Also they want to place more games in "Asia-friendly" time slots. It sucks a lot for people going to the stadiums, since they don't really blend well with our routines and weather (games at noon in August/early September are a terrible idea).

Kubala is arguably Barça's greatest legend, to see that Messi's equaled his goalscoring record at age 24 is huge, huge for us. And he may become our all-time top goalscorer at age 25! People like me grew up hearing from our dads the tales of Kubala and the things he did. In my time, I'll be able to tell my sons that I saw Lionel Messi live... one of the greatest joys I'll have.

Attendances for most teams are way low so far, the recession most probably, but the new kick off times imposed by the TV rights holder are pretty awful too A lot of teams are being way too conservative indeed, but there's been lots of good games this season. Real Madrid - Rayo was actually quite close for most of the game and quite exciting despite the final scoreline. Valencia - Barça was an absolute cracker last week and could have gone either way.

Man, how I love to be back home in games like this. The 343 worked a treat this time, never seen us dominate a midfield like this.

Well, they kept a squad that was far too good for the division in order to go up, which put them in the current financial situation. Pepe Mel makes them play some very nice football, mind.

The Spanish Congress has finally ratified our new bankruptcy law. Starting this summer, sport clubs in administration will be punishable by the sports' governing bodies, with the most direct effect being that all clubs still in administration coming July 2012 will be relegated. Currently Real Zaragoza, Rayo Vallecano, Real Betis, Racing Santander are in administration, and a dozen others in the lower flights.