General Football Discussion

[afcajax73]

i see siggy scored last night for iceland.. why cant he score for us?!

[Manneken Pis]

Apparently UEFA is changing the seeding system for the CL. As I understand little of their machinations (sp?) could someone tell me if this is good or bad for us?

Cheers,

MP

[Orange14]

Wow, our second team striker Milik got the first goal for Poland as they beat Germany in a Euro qualifier today 2-0!!! He deserves a starting position.

[#14]

These would have been your groups under the new system. Would have allowed us to get Madrid and Chelsea. Ultimately the critical goal is a national one - moving the country ranking up from its current 9th to the pot 1 guaranteed 7th.

Pot 1
-------
Real Madrid
Atlético Madrid
Manchester City
Paris Saint-Germain
CSKA Moscow
Benfica
Bayern Munich
Juventus

Pot 2
-------
Barcelona
Chelsea
Arsenal
Porto
Schalke 04
Borussia Dortmund
Shakhtar Donetsk
Basel

Pot 3
-------
Zenit Saint Petersburg
Bayer Leverkusen
Olympiacos
Ajax
Liverpool
Sporting CP
Galatasaray
Athletic Bilbao

Pot 4
-------
Anderlecht
Roma
APOEL
BATE Borisov
Ludogorets Razgrad
Maribor
Monaco
Malmö FF

[Tom_]

So what are the 6th- and 7th-ranked UEFA leagues? France & Russia? I had a look on their site but I couldn't see it...

[Van basten]

I think it's Portugal and Russia.

[Tom_]

Here's a table on Wikipedia, which claims to be up-to-date as of the start of October.

Well it's not a big surprise the eredivisie is poorly ranked, and 7th looks a fair way off what with us being the only eredivisie team in the CL and only PSV and Feyenoord in the UEFA Cup, but I honestly have zero idea how the scores are calculated. I guess with easier draws we may have made it through the group stage once or twice in the last few seasons, which would no doubt have increased the coefficient...

[Manneken Pis]

Wow, now this is interesting......

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/socce ... -1.1995761

[King Litti]

Everything is for sale apparently. Barca is considering to change their famous home kit, because Nike is pushing them. They need to sell more shirts?! How much more shirts can a team sell? And is worth it to ruin a piece of your history and identity. This could even back fire if they are going to really do it.

I mean I sure wouldn't accept it if they would mess with our home shirt (I know it has changed over the years, but the current has been around so long that it is legendary and it is something we're known by).

[aveslacker]

IIRC Barca is still in a fair amount of debt, so their financial situation may warrant finding new ways to raise revenue. Not that I'm trying to justify it by any means ...

[Orange14]

Everything is for sale apparently. Barca is considering to change their famous home kit, because Nike is pushing them. They need to sell more shirts?! How much more shirts can a team sell? And is worth it to ruin a piece of your history and identity. This could even back fire if they are going to really do it.

I mean I sure wouldn't accept it if they would mess with our home shirt (I know it has changed over the years, but the current has been around so long that it is legendary and it is something we're known by).

There are several teams that have added a "third" shirt for some reason or another. I don't know why they are doing this (I saw Milan play in a "new" home shirt the other day and Juventus have also done something similar). I doubt that shirt sales is the reason for a Barca change as they already sell lots of shirts. When we were on holiday there several years ago, the fan shops were always full and shirt sales were very robust. Most fans will buy the new shirt every season even if there are only "cosmetic" differences. I've got about six Ajax shirts myself.

[Orange14]

A trip to Poland is in the offering as Ajax have drawn Legia Warsaw in the Europa League.

[Amol]

This should be a win if we need to get any respect at all in Europe.

Feyenoord(Roma) and PSV(Zenit) received much tougher opponents than us. Although Feyenoord has shocked many this season (including me) by beating EL 2013 winner Sevilla at home.

[rjf1]

As I recall, Fnoord actually won the EL a few years back. Maybe they have a 'thing' for the EL.

[SPL]

Well on paper its the easiest draw of the Dutch teams and we should get through. Big problem is the extra round
in the EL.

[Tom_]

I'm all for a long run in the UEFA Cup. I hope we win it! (but we won't anyway, so )

[souras84]

I just want revenge from Salzburg.

[Tom_]

That would be nice. Are they still the same team? Frankie can prove he's not a tactical yoghurt by coming up with a plan to beat them!

[souras84]

They had the best offence in the Europa League group stage. So the might be as strong as last year. Maybe Frank can redeem himself... or totally humiliate himself again!

[Orange14]

I just finished reading a great book on football analytics written by a couple of American university professors. "The Numbers Game: Why Everything you Know about Soccer is Wrong" by Chris Anderson and David Sally is an excellent review of how analytics have developed and where things are headed. Although the cover says there is an afterword on the 2014 WC, I sure couldn't find it.

The book is divided into three main sections and points out that because so few goals are scored, many matches are decided on luck. There is a very good section on how Stoke City have survived in the EPL despite having very mediocre players (they suck time out of the match decreasing the chance for goal scoring opportunities). Fixing the weakest link on a team is far more important than buying a new striker (something that Barcelona have neglected in the past three years as their defense has faltered). Keeping a clean sheet is far more important than scoring lots of goals.

Although most of the examples are from the English league there is a funny chapter entitled, 'How Do You Solve a Problem Like Megrelishvilli?' He was a defender at Vitesse in 2008 who had a really bad start in the match against Twente that he was subbed off in the sixth minute pointing out that he was the weakest link that day.

I give this book a very strong recommendation and am sure that all will find something new that they hadn't thought about.

[ajaxusa]

Am I reading correctly that Ajax are having their mid-season break training in Qatar? If so, that's extremely disappointing.

[Orange14]

Yes, they are over there right now and have a friendly match with Schalke this week end.

[aveslacker]

Am I reading correctly that Ajax are having their mid-season break training in Qatar? If so, that's extremely disappointing.

Doubly disappointing that I don't live there anymore!

[rjf1]

... There is a very good section on how Stoke City have survived in the EPL despite having very mediocre players (they suck time out of the match decreasing the chance for goal scoring opportunities)...

This is a very critical point. IMO the change that football most desperately needs (among several other game-improving changes), is for the time keeping system to change so it is like every other major sport. I.e. the time is kept off the field by a dedicated timekeeper; the clock stops when the ball isn't in play; and the game ends when the time runs down to zero. This will put an end to all the time wasting shenanigens in the current game in addition to eliminating the arbitrary 'additional time' factor that never really reflects the amount of lost time that occurs during a game.

BTW, something else that contributes to Stoke's ability to survive is their incessant fouling and the physical intimidation factor that they rely on. Which gets me started on the next change I feel is important -- which is a foul punishment system that combines the way they do things in basketball and hockey: Something like, 4 ordinary fouls or one major (yellow card) foul by an individual, and he sits out for 10 minutes; 7 ordinary fouls (3 more after the original 4), a second yellow card, or a straight red, and the player is out of the game. In addition there should be a total number of team fouls per half (to keep the team from spreading the fouling around) -- exceeding the total requires a team to play a man short for 15 minutes.

[aveslacker]

I agree with this point. I understand the hesitation to change (for example how long it has taken to begin adopting goal-line reviews) but the time-wasting antics and cynical play take away from the enjoyment of the game.

You can still waste time within the rules of the game and you can play good defense without resorting to excessive fouling.

At a bare minimum there should be at least two, if not three referees on the pitch. Ice hockey, which is played in a smaller area with fewer players has three refs. There's no reason why it can't work in soccer as well.