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2021-22-23-24 News Thread

jeffbear said:
Oh, that sparked a bit of joy as well. No self-respecting Celtic fan was comfortable being behind those guys* in the trophy tally.

*of course, most Celtic fans don't accept the current numbers anyway. Rangers are a completely new organization post-liquidation in 2012 and should have been forced to start from scratch. Not that they've won much since then anyway.
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I was actually thinking the same about starting over and the "not won much" part, too. 😁
And I get the "being behind those guys" part as well. Galls us Liverpool fans that were one behind United in topflight trophies, 20-19. This despite having teams in 18-19 season that would've won the Prem in all but two other seasons ever, and 21-22 when we secured more points than all other champions save Chelsea's 04-05 and 16-17 teams, and United's 93-94 team. Maybe we tie United this season. I hope.
 
Don’t look now, but the European Super League is back. But it’s called the Unify League now, and will include 96 teams across 4 divisions. There are no details on how teams would qualify or how it would be funded. But A22 Sports, who was behind the original idea, has applied to UEFA and FIFA for authorization. They believe they’ll have no choice but to approve the application, based on last year’s ruling from the European Court of Justice that the response to the Super League by UEFA and FIFA breached European Union laws.

www.nytimes.com

European Super League relaunches as ‘Unify League’: What’s different – and will it work this time?

The company behind the controversial European Super League idea has tweaked its proposal once more, completely scrapping the original closed-shop format, in a bid to make it more attractive to clubs and fans. Last December, Madrid-based A22 Sports announced it was dropping its 2021 plan of...
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
Vermont won the NCAA Men's Soccer championship last night with a truly engaging 2-1 win over Marshall in extra time. I only note it here because the Catamounts went an amazing 3-0-1 in extra time in the tournament. Three OT winners and one PK winner? They more than earned that one. It was Vermont's first national championship in anything other than skiing, I believe.
 
It's OK. I saw the some of the matches on ESPN U, including parts of earlier matches and the women's final between UNC and Wake Forest. I also saw the end of the Marshall match where they beat my Buckeyes, and the penalty shoot-out between Vermont and Denver. But I missed the final? 🤦‍♂️ Hope I can find it somewhere. I see it's on tonight on ESPNU at 6:00 PST but we'll be out.
 
Chris Cilizza tweeted about a problem facing college soccer. And it’s colored but the fact that his son plays in high school and wants to play in college. It’s about the influx of foreign born players on college soccer teams. He quotes Georgetown’s coach, “It truly is the most difficult time to be a high-end American soccer player to find a home that I can think of." Of the 22 starters in the final, there were 6 American born players, 5 of them playing for Vermont.

The same thing happened in cross country and track in the late 70s-early 80s. Several schools, but UTEP most prominently, recruited older athletes from eastern African countries, Kenya and Tanzania primarily. They brought UTEP 6 cross county national titles between 1975-81.
 
Yeah, I'm not so sure about all that. On the men's side, NCAA soccer just isn't a primary development path so you're going to get a lot of weird outcomes as teams try to find talent to compete. The primary path to a pro contract just doesn't go through the NCAA, it goes through MLS and other regional academies and most of the truly high end players are off the wheel before they'd even think about college. So they're sifting through late bloomer US high schoolers and foreign players who found their path blocked in their own development programs for whatever reason. Honestly, the men's college game has been some version of what we see now for decades, so I'm not getting where G-town's coach is coming from unless he's just complaining about his own school's specific situation.
 
jeffbear said:
Yeah, I'm not so sure about all that. On the men's side, NCAA soccer just isn't a primary development path so you're going to get a lot of weird outcomes as teams try to find talent to compete. The primary path to a pro contract just doesn't go through the NCAA, it goes through MLS and other regional academies and most of the truly high end players are off the wheel before they'd even think about college. So they're sifting through late bloomer US high schoolers and foreign players who found their path blocked in their own development programs for whatever reason. Honestly, the men's college game has been some version of what we see now for decades, so I'm not getting where G-town's coach is coming from unless he's just complaining about his own school's specific situation.
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Georgetown’s program has been pretty successful, winning the national championship in 2019 and making 8 straight NCAA appearances. Of their 28 player roster, all but 2 are Americans. So maybe he’s saying that he’s maxed out at his top end with just without foreign players?
 
Maybe so. I just hear a lot of nonsense about the state of college men's soccer from college coaches, and most of it is blind to the obvious fact that they just aren't a viable destination for the best players. And unless more NIL money starts to trickle down to non revenue sports with no TV presence, that ain't likely to change. The state of the sport is a mirror image to most college sports, as the women's game has a much better talent pool than the men's game, and play at a higher relative level. That seems to grind these guys' gears as well. And even that's probably a mirage as well, as NWSL clubs start to invest more in their academy paths and are no longer bound to the draft. It's not just college football and basketball that are going through changes ... everybody else is under pressure to be revenue neutral so all the cash can go to the revenue sports. That's a big ask for the big roster sports like soccer. There's just a lot of angst in college sports at all levels right now.
 
FIFA awarded the US broadcast rights for the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cups to Netflix. FIFA didn’t disclose the terms of the deal but described it as a ”landmark”. Gianni Infantino wasn’t happy with the rights fees that Fox paid in 2023 in the first Women's World Cup where the men’s and women’s tournaments were bid on separately. Infantin referred to Netflix as a long-term partner. Maybe that’s 4 years, maybe it’s a shot across bow of Fox, ESPN and everyone else.
 
Okay, so I guess once every four years I sign up for Netflix. It really is insane that they just started trying to actually make money from the Women's World Cup. FIFA was just so sexist that they didn't even care that more people in the US watch the Women's national team than any of the Men's World Cup.
 
Netflix's shift to sports is really picking up steam, but I hope they figure out the demand loading problems they've had with live events in the past before I actually care about any of that stuff. Good test coming up for them on Christmas day.
 
This was the expected location since it's really the only place with potential for adequate seating. It needs a good amount of work and is also in a public park in a residential area so there are concerns about noise and cars. For me personally, it's an absolute pain in the ass to get to even though it's only about 12 miles away from me since I'm just north of Boston and this is the south side of Boston, but this is still a good thing.
 
Yeah, that was always the plan from what I remember. Aren't they still negotiating over construction costs? Also, that restriction on weekend games is gonna play havoc with the league schedule.
 
AC Milan sacked manager Paulo Fonseca. Halfway through the season, they’re in 8th place, 8 points out of a Champions League spot. He was in his first season there, he had been at Lille for the previous 2 years.
 
What’s the difference between managing the English Men’s National Team and managing club football? Gareth Southgate was knighted in the King’s New Year’s Honours List. He can formally be called Sir Gareth Southgate. David Moyes was also on the Honours List, he was awarded a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE), the lowest of the 5 classes of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

Southgate is the 4th National Team manager to be knighted, after Sir Walter Winterbottom, Sir Bobby Robson and Sir Alf Ramsey
 
Wayne Rooney is out at Plymouth Argyle by mutual consent. The Pilgrims are at the foot of the championship table with 18 points in 23 matches on 4 wins and 6 draws. They’re on pace to give up 100 goals.

Why would anyone give him another chance? Through 178 matches between Derby, DC United, Birmingham and now Plymouth, he’s won 45 matches and drawn another 46. He set Birmingham on the path to relegation last season, taking a team in a playoff spot to the bottom, losing 9 of his 15 matches in charge. And while he can’t be blamed for Derby‘s relegation in 2022, they’d have finished 17th absent the 21 point deduction. They barely avoided relegation the season before, escaping by 1 point.
 
andyt said:
Why would anyone give him another chance?
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Why did anyone give him any of his previous chances? Because people who own and run clubs are often stupid and think the name will sell tickets. It does. For a month or so until it doesn't anymore because he's a potato and not a manager.
 
jeffbear said:
Why did anyone give him any of his previous chances? Because people who own and run clubs are often stupid and think the name will sell tickets. It does. For a month or so until it doesn't anymore because he's a potato and not a manager.
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See also Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, although the former did reasonably well at Derby and Chelsea 1.0 and the latter did well at Rangers. But Lampard is at Coventry City, having taken over at the end of November and Gerrard is in Saudi Arabia.
 
The Barca financial woes continue. At the moment, they will not be able to register Dani Olmo or Pau Victor for the second half of the season. Victor will be sent out on loan for the second half of the season, but Olmo apparently has an option to void his contract if he's unable to be registered. He's said he only wants to play for Barca, but he will be unable to play for him this year and if he does decide to become a free agent, Barca will have paid 60 mil or whatever it was for six months.
 
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