Village Idiot Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Spanish generalist newspaper "El Mundo" (not to confuse with "El Mundo Deportivo") linking David Beckham with a purchase of Málaga, together with Alexi Lalas. BOOM. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest neesy111 Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 FFS. I thought he has the option to set-up his own MLS Franchise? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Village Idiot Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Apparently one of their journalists has f***ed up badly and they will probably retract the info. They are interested in investing in businesses in the area but not the football club. Pity, Beckham and Lalas owning a Spanish club would have been just too awesome. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Village Idiot Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Big news, Málaga and Atlético prize money frozen by UEFA under the auspices of FFP while it investigates their finances - alongside 20 odd other European clubs. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest neesy111 Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Big news, Málaga and Atlético prize money frozen by UEFA under the auspices of FFP while it investigates their finances - alongside 20 odd other European clubs. Any English? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Village Idiot Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Big news, Málaga and Atlético prize money frozen by UEFA under the auspices of FFP while it investigates their finances - alongside 20 odd other European clubs. Any English? No, here's the list. Some notables from second/third tier leagues but no "big" clubs other than these two. Sporting CP Fenerbahce Rubin Kazan Partizan Belgrad FK Borac Banja Luka FK Sarajevo FK Zeljeznicar CSKA Sofía Hadjuk Osijek Maccabi Netanya FK Shkendija 79 Floriana FK Buducnost Rudar Pjevla Ruch Chorzow Dinamo Bucarest Rapid Bucarest Vaslui Vojvodina Eskisehirspor Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gbandit Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 That's a start like VI, I just hope they target clubs fairly Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tooj Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 I know the guy admits to be being biased, but dear me. http://www.madridgalacticos.com/2011/05/29/3-reasons-messi/ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Village Idiot Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 I suppose that you can extract some hilarity from his views on Owen, too, from another article I saw: * Michael Owen (£8m plus Antonio Núñez from Liverpool F.C.) – joined in 2004 (not really a Galactico in terms of ability, but he was the best forward left who was not playing for Real Madrid at that time, ofcouse there was no C.Ronaldo or Messi at that time, neither had Ronaldinho playing so dominantly as he did a season after that, also Thierry Henry was too monotonous in his play, Owen had variety to his finishing and positioning) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelphish Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Stopped reading at 'All the goals Ronaldo scored were hard goals'. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gbandit Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Stopped reading at 'All the goals Ronaldo scored were hard goals'. It's just littered with complete bollocks. In the first paragraph he says he may be the quickest player in the world, in the next paragraph, he says he doesn't have brute pace. Two other sickening lines: Messi doesn't score solo goals - he's scored more solo goals than anyone else I can think of for the last five years. So many of his goals are solo goals. Ronaldo does it all on his own.... I'm not reading anymore Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Village Idiot Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Stopped reading at 'All the goals Ronaldo scored were hard goals'. The following sentence is gold: Even though he had some good amount of tap ins, he had to a lot of running or work before the goal to get the goal. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ponsaelius Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Valencia fans protesting the 11pm (!) KO time when I was at the Mestalla last month. http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u242/supersewelly/PICT0205.jpg From what I could make out there was a lot of anti-Barca and anti-Madrid chanting throughout the game too. Fucking daft like, 11pm on a Sunday night. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Village Idiot Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 The 11pm slots are fucking daft. That means you're out at 1am, which is absolutely ridiculous. Add to it that subway and most buses close at 12 in most Spanish cities on Sundays and the disaster is compounded. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ponsaelius Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 They ran a marginally later subway service I think, but we had to switch trains on the way back to the hotel. So we got one train, then on switching to the 2nd one the service was finished. Had to get a taxi the rest of the way. Got back just before 2. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Village Idiot Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 The 11 pm thing, by the way, exists so TVs can broadcast more games one after the other, without more than one game being played at the same time and thus be able to sell more of them. That's why we also have 2-3 games being played on Mondays Extremely fucked up state of affairs. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Village Idiot Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Anyway, enjoyed the game? Valencia - Depor was a cracker. City is a blast, too. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ponsaelius Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Anyway, enjoyed the game? Valencia - Depor was a cracker. City is a blast, too. Loved it. Great game and a high standard of football. Valencia threw it away 2nd half through just completely easing off I thought because it was clear as day they had more talent all over the pitch. I was surprised by how pleasant and 'cheery' the atmosphere was coming out of the ground, if that was a Toon game people would be rotten as fuck for throwing a game away so sloppily. Everything is just a lot more laid back, I gathered. Your whole country is great, tbh. Obviously the economy is in a terrible position right now but in terms of lifestyle, food, weather etc everything is brill. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Optimistic Nut Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Love that banner. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Village Idiot Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Anyway, enjoyed the game? Valencia - Depor was a cracker. City is a blast, too. Loved it. Great game and a high standard of football. Valencia threw it away 2nd half through just completely easing off I thought because it was clear as day they had more talent all over the pitch. I was surprised by how pleasant and 'cheery' the atmosphere was coming out of the ground, if that was a Toon game people would be rotten as f*** for throwing a game away so sloppily. Everything is just a lot more laid back, I gathered. Your whole country is great, tbh. Obviously the economy is in a terrible position right now but in terms of lifestyle, food, weather etc everything is brill. To be frank the team got booed off the pitch for lesser things last year, but with Emery gone they probably want to cut the team some slack. Mestalla usually has a very cheery atmosphere anyway. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Village Idiot Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Love that banner. The Simpsons are huge down here Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ponsaelius Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Anyway, enjoyed the game? Valencia - Depor was a cracker. City is a blast, too. Loved it. Great game and a high standard of football. Valencia threw it away 2nd half through just completely easing off I thought because it was clear as day they had more talent all over the pitch. I was surprised by how pleasant and 'cheery' the atmosphere was coming out of the ground, if that was a Toon game people would be rotten as f*** for throwing a game away so sloppily. Everything is just a lot more laid back, I gathered. Your whole country is great, tbh. Obviously the economy is in a terrible position right now but in terms of lifestyle, food, weather etc everything is brill. To be frank the team got booed off the pitch for lesser things last year, but with Emery gone they probably want to cut the team some slack. Mestalla usually has a very cheery atmosphere anyway. I never understood why they had it in so much for Emery. Thought he did a decent enough job on the whole, apart from the nasty exit from the Europa. I was meant to go to Betis - Atletico too, but it got moved to a Monday (after we'd left). Just looking now and it looks like it it was moved completely for the Super Cup anyway. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Village Idiot Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Anyway, enjoyed the game? Valencia - Depor was a cracker. City is a blast, too. Loved it. Great game and a high standard of football. Valencia threw it away 2nd half through just completely easing off I thought because it was clear as day they had more talent all over the pitch. I was surprised by how pleasant and 'cheery' the atmosphere was coming out of the ground, if that was a Toon game people would be rotten as f*** for throwing a game away so sloppily. Everything is just a lot more laid back, I gathered. Your whole country is great, tbh. Obviously the economy is in a terrible position right now but in terms of lifestyle, food, weather etc everything is brill. To be frank the team got booed off the pitch for lesser things last year, but with Emery gone they probably want to cut the team some slack. Mestalla usually has a very cheery atmosphere anyway. I never understood why they had it in so much for Emery. Thought he did a decent enough job on the whole, apart from the nasty exit from the Europa. I was meant to go to Betis - Atletico too, but it got moved to a Monday (after we'd left). Just looking now and it looks like it it was moved completely for the Super Cup anyway. Yeah, the game got called off. Our FA is just like that. About Valencia, Sid Lowe wrote an article that summed it up brilliantly: Valencia: prisoners of their own success Few have recognised Unai Emery's role in making Valencia the best in Spain's other league. When they're not, perhaps they will Share 59 Email Aritz Aduriz reacts against Mallorca. Photograph: Jose Jordan/AFP/Getty Images It was all going so well too. On Thursday night, they steamed into a 4-0 lead before the clock had even reached an hour; four days later, they'd scored another two without reply before half-time. And yet Thursday finished with boos and Sunday did too. Their week ended with whistles and white hankies. Down in the pressroom they waited and wondered. Half an hour passed, three-quarters, an hour, more. When the Valencia coach Unai Emery eventually appeared, they asked him where he had been. He explained that the president had been down to see him, seeking an explanation. This could not go on. 'This' being consistently topping Spain's other league – the one that teams other than Real Madrid and FC Barcelona are allowed to play for. On Thursday Valencia defeated PSV Eindhoven 4-2, on Sunday they drew 2-2 with Mallorca; they are third in the league, on course for a Champions League slot, and are well placed to progress in Europe. But the early promise and enjoyment – always laced with a certain trepidation – had, with creeping inevitability, given way to frustration. This was the story of Valencia's season; in fact, it was the story of the last three seasons. It is a story that's drawing to a close: for Emery, just being good enough is just not good enough. He and his team have become prisoners of their own success. A success that some judge a failure. There is something cruel about it, something vaguely absurd too, but the league's joint longest serving manager may not be serving very much longer. The love has gone. If it was ever really there. Back in February, Unai Emery released a book called Mentalidad ganadora: el método Emery. Winning Mentality: the Emery Method. Many Valencia fans thought it was some sort of joke. In the book, a study claimed that Emery was in fact the "most effective" coach in Spain. The fans thought that was even more of a joke. And as for him being presented as Capitán Trueno – Captain Thunder, the heroic comic-book knight – they thought that was simply laughable. They had a rather different impression of him. Four months earlier, the Association of Valencia Supports Clubs had written him a letter which might as well have said: "Dear Unai: we don't like you. Please go away. Lots of love, the fans xx." Only it was not that polite. What it actually did say was that the fans were "totally disgusted", that Emery had "little credit left" and that because of him his team lacked "commitment, courage, dignity and identity". "We're not going to tolerate those attitudes," the letter stated, "or [tolerate] them playing with our ilusión and our valencianista feeling: we demand a radical change in attitude." On the face of it, it was a ridiculous thing to say. Emery is a tactical obsessive who works almost pathologically hard at his profession – and, yes, there are some who frankly don't – and demands commitment from his players. Sessions are followed by videos and homework. Some resist but as Emery puts it: "You tell them: 'look, there's a guy who goes into his office at eight in the morning and stays there, in front of a computer, all day. Here, you run around for a bit in the sun. Two hours, massage, home. What more do you want. How hard is it? You talk to them. Or to kids. You go to school, eight hours, maths, physics, history … literacy! … geography! Come on, this is football! It's what you like. You play and you go home'." It works too. Up to a point. When Emery took over in 2008, Valencia had just finished 10th. The following season, he took them to sixth. The two seasons after that, his team finished third and this season they were briefly on top of the table and have now occupied third place for 16 successive weeks. Each season he has seen his best players depart, and each season he has reinvented the side. Every one of Valencia's World Cup winners have gone – Silva, Villa, Mata and Marchena – and yet now they have two more players in the Spain squad. No one seriously expects them to compete for the title – "there is not a position where one of the three or four best in the world in that position is not playing for Madrid or Barcelona," Emery says, and he is right – and they have consistently achieved the place that they can seriously be expected to compete for. This season they reached the Copa del Rey semi-final too. You can't ask for more; the counter-argument says you can't expect less either. That's the way Valencia's fans are, the way the city is. There is something about Valencia – the theory talks of a land of abundance, from rice to oranges to sunshine – that always demands more and is never satisfied. Forever seeking a scapegoat. When that attitude is questioned, the response is inevitable: you have to be here, to live it, to know. Héctor Cúper was booed when his side were top of the table (he later took them to two successive Champions League finals). Quique Sanchez Flores was booed. Sacked, too. Rafa Benítez didn't get quite the same treatment but there were doubts and rumblings, pressure. As one former player puts it: "here, you know you're going to get puteado". Slagged off. Finishing third is just not enough. Valencia are 26 points off the top; last season they finished 21 points off and the season before that 24. It is not that Valencia fans demand that their team finish above Madrid and Barcelona but that they at least finish close to them. In part it is the fact that Valencia know that they are not good enough to overhaul them that means that they do not even get close to them. There is a flip side to that, one that is counter-intuitive but explains much: in a strange way, it is the fact that Valencia are good enough to always be the closest team to them that does too; and because they know that they're unlikely to be caught by the teams behind them, they might be caught by them this time. Valencia have hit a glass ceiling – and maybe even a glass floor too. Motivation has become problematic. The huge differences in resources between Valencia and the big two not only explains their failure to compete, it also excuses it, becoming something to hide behind. Nor is anyone helped by the lingering feeling that Emery was never fully embraced in the first place; every year the president Manolo Llorente renews his contract; every year the nagging suspicion is that he does so because there is no one else. The players, too, have grown tired of Emery. Aware, also, of his diminishing authority. Competitive edge is removed, aspirations too. A spiral begins; the machine slows, eventually spluttering to a halt. They have won just two of the last 10. Emotion dies. Sure, they keep finishing third but there is more to it than stats; there are sensations. A Champions League place is the realistic peak of Valencia's ambitions but it no longer feels like a peak. Consistent success in claiming third has made it feel less like a success – no longer an achievement or an aspiration. There's something unremittingly dull about fulfilling your objectives every season. A tangible target that is not a trophy loses its charm, provoking a sense of anticlimax and a lack of competitive tension. A season in sixth followed by one in third would have excited fans more. But there has been little emotion, little excitement, no drama and no sprint to the line. Emery's conservatism has not helped: especially not when it has cost them games – watching a lead slip is infuriatingly familiar. A 2-2 draw from 2-0 down delights; a 2-2 draw from 2-0 up does the opposite. Unfair though it may be, that is one of the reasons why Winning Mentality was greeted like a bad joke. Recent performances have been depressing anaemic, ploddingly defensive. Sometimes supporters just want their team to let loose; Valencia rarely do. There has been no cup to break the monotony. Instead there have been opportunities wasted: supporters still can't understand how they did not progress against a frankly not-that-good Schalke in last season's Champions League. There hasn't even been a great night to remember: against the league's best teams, draws are as good as it gets. This weekend, there were whistles and white hankies. At the end of the season, Emery may finally depart. He has done everything that could have realistically been asked of him, but they asked for more. Few have recognised his role in making Valencia consistently the best team in Spain's other league. When they are not, perhaps they will. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
David28 Posted September 15, 2012 Share Posted September 15, 2012 Question to VI or any other who's very much into La Liga... How are Sevilla doing at the moment? Quite high odds for a Real Madrid win tonight which I don't want to miss out on. Question is just why? Looking at their last results they don't seem to be that good.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Village Idiot Posted September 15, 2012 Share Posted September 15, 2012 Sevilla are one good reliable goalscorer away from challenging again for Top 4, imho. They have been improving since Míchel took charge last year, and he has slowly renovated them after the rot had been setting as their mid-2000s side aged. I don't think they will be a problem for RM, mind, their style is less physical now than what it used to be, which plays into Mou's hands. But Sevilla have looked good this season despite the results not looking all that. I suppose the odds reflect that the Pizjuán is one of the most hostile places for Real Madrid to visit. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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