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Football Thread 2016/17 |OT| Mou Money Mo Pogba

DBT85

Member
zlatan.jpg


Jose reminding them that its 3 this season
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
I played in a cup final once for a local team. We had a crowd of about 200-250 and so many players couldn't deal with the nervs. We were use to about 30 people max turning up 😂

The difference here is that Ajax plays in a quite competitive league at home in front of big crowds, played a full run in an European Cup and these are professional players and these kind of basic errors shouldn't happen at this level. I guess the coach should have prepared them better for this game.
 

Syder

Member
Sucks to see so much hate against Ajax, even after all the praise after Schalke and Lyon.

Gotta have to respect the way they reached the finals. Got outplayed by mou and it took to long for Bosz to react.
'Hate'? I mean, Ajax simply did not turn up for the Final.

Well done to them for getting that far but based on previous performances I expected a lot more than that.
 

cyber_ninja

Member
Congrats to UnitedGaf, it was a rough season but we made out alright in the end. So excited for this transfer window and upcoming season. Also cannot wait to see us play Barca in DC this summer. GGMU!!!
 

Jarnet87

Member
Mou bet it all on Europa and made it count. Ajax ineptitude in attack helped but United were rock solid at the back. Champions League was the goal and he got it. Fellaini was good tonight !
 

Kickz

Member
Fuckin Ajax...

So does United become 5th team from EPL to go to Champions League or does one of the top 4 lose its spot???
 

DBT85

Member
Fuckin Ajax...

So does United become 5th team from EPL to go to Champions League or does one of the top 4 lose its spot???

All 5 get in. Pool have to get through the qualifiers though, but they are seeded so should have an easier time of it.

Only way 4th would have lost its spot this year is if Leicester won the CL.
 

Zasa

Member
Pretty crazy that Liverpool beat Man U, Dortmund, & Villarreal, to get to the final. Ultimately losing to Sevilla, one of La Liga's best teams. While Man U had to beat Rostov, Anderlecht, Celta Vigo, & Ajax to win the title. What a stark difference in opponent quality, imo.

Fair play to Man U, of course. A win is a win.
 

casiopao

Member
Guys. Anyone here watched Portugese league? I want to see how does u guys rate Felipe Augusto?

It seems Juventus is being linked....to another CB lol.^^

We seems to love collecting those good CB lol.
 

RocknRola

Member
Guys. Anyone here watched Portugese league? I want to see how does u guys rate Felipe Augusto?

It seems Juventus is being linked....to another CB lol.^^

We seems to love collecting those good CB lol.

Generic Jorge Mendes player. Aka, not awful, but not nearly as good as you'd want him to be.

Soo, uh, good luck with that :p
 

RocknRola

Member
He's kinda shit.



That's Filipe Augusto. Also shit

Felipe is a Bertolucci player.

RIo Ave + Estoril + Braga (partly) are in essence Mendes's outposts. More often than not for the past 5 or so years players that arrived to those 3 teams were part of his agency. Hell, some didn't even play there, despite being contracted by them (shady visa business, in short).

Hence my "generic Jorge Mendes" player :p But yeah, kinda crap. Rio Ave was so-so as whole this season. Their best player, IMO, is Krovinovic.
 

RocknRola

Member
I, personally, count the charity shield as a trophy. I count the UEFA Super Cup as one too.

Come at me. ;)

Never quite understood why people are so "against" those trophies. You HAD to win something to get there. And winning an Europa League or a Champions League isn't easy, likewise with winning a League or a National Cup.

Why people get mad about those trophies (which also aren't "given", you still have to play against, usually, a good team to win tehm) is beyond me.
 
Can't pretend I'm not salty United had such a smoother path through the EL then we did, but yesterday was scary from a point of view their defense was locked down. Get those big money players in up the field and we may have a problem.

Surely one English team is gonna do well in the CL next year through, right? Everyone has something to prove.
 

TimmmV

Member
The charity shield and the super cup are about as low in importance as trophies can come.

Don't think I've ever heard of a fan being particularly gutted when their team failed to win either of those.

And grouping them together does a disservice to the hard competitions a team was actually good enough to win - I remember getting annoyed at Houllier back in the day when he bragged about winning 5 trophies in a year, when 2 of those were the Charity Shield and Super Cup. It made winning the other 3 seem more trivial than it actually was.

I've got a mate who used to brag about getting 5 A-levels when we were at 6th form, which sounds impressive until you find out he was including General Studies with them. It kind of reminds me of that tbh, it would be more impressive to just brag about the 4 lol
 

RocknRola

Member
The charity shield and the super cup are about as low in importance as trophies can come.

Don't think I've ever heard of a fan being particularly gutted when their team failed to win either of those.

And grouping them together does a disservice to the hard competitions a team was actually good enough to win - I remember getting annoyed at Houllier back in the day when he bragged about winning 5 trophies in a year, when 2 of those were the Charity Shield and Super Cup. It made winning the other 3 seem more trivial than it actually was.

I've got a mate who used to brag about getting 5 A-levels when we were at 6th form, which sounds impressive until you find out he was including General Studies with them. It kind of reminds me of that tbh, it would be more impressive to just brag about the 4 lol

That makes zero sense and that's a bad comparison as well.

To get there you HAD to win something before. It's literally a "champions only" trophy. I can bet you any team in the world, even giants like RM, Barça, Juve, Bayern, etc would more than gladly play them every single year (and win them, of course).

I really don't get this perspective of just outright dismissing these trophies.
 

Carbonox

Member
I'd rather have a Community Shield in my trophy cabinet than not having one.

Don't confuse prestige of a given trophy with the actual worth of winning something. If I'm in 5 finals I want to win all 5 finals. Give me everything. Fans should back that.

Trophy conversation has been, is and will always be a fucking headache. Newcastle won the Championship and I'm happy we got a trophy. It's a trophy, it's inherently not worthless.
 

TimmmV

Member
That makes zero sense and that's a bad comparison as well.

To get there you HAD to win something before. It's literally a "champions only" trophy. I can bet you any team in the world, even giants like RM, Barça, Juve, Bayern, etc would more than gladly play them every single year (and win them, of course).

I really don't get this perspective of just outright dismissing these trophies.

Come on, fans of those teams would only celebrate that because it indicates they have been winning other trophies that they actually value

I'd rather have a Community Shield in my trophy cabinet than not having one.

Don't confuse prestige of a given trophy with the actual worth of winning something. If I'm in 5 finals I want to win all 5 finals. Give me everything. Fans should back that.

Trophy conversation has been, is and will always be a fucking headache. Newcastle won the Championship and I'm happy we got a trophy. It's a trophy, it's inherently not worthless.

Of course any fan will want their team to win as much as possible, thats only logical, but there is definitely a hierarchy of priorities with them, and IMO if a fan wouldn't be that bothered by losing the trophy then its not that important. This summer Liverpool will be playing in the Audi cup - do I want them to win it? Of course. Will I be that bothered if they don't? No not really.
 

RocknRola

Member
Come on, fans of those teams would only celebrate that because it indicates they have been winning other trophies that they actually value



Of course any fan will want their team to win as much as possible, thats only logical, but there is definitely a hierarchy of priorities with them, and IMO if a fan wouldn't be that bothered by losing the trophy then its not that important. This summer Liverpool will be playing in the Audi cup - do I want them to win it? Of course. Will I be that bothered if they don't? No not really.

That's a different issue though. Barça bragging about winning 6 titles in a single season (rather, trophies that refer to a single season) is a matter of MASSIVE prestige, regardless of some of them being "easier" or not as "important".

Also did you just compare pre-season trophies, which are by default excuses to have matches against decent teams in the Summer, to actual trophies like the European Supercup or the equivalent to each country's Supercup? The former don't add prestige (they may or may not add a whole load of money, depending on the actual tournament) and serve a purpose of preparing the team for the season; the latter do add prestige, the latter are always another gold mark in any club's history and are already competitions that any club want to win (and not use as another pre-season match).

If fans would rather win a Champions League than any other trophy in the entire season? Sure, I can get that. It is the trophy the entire European continent wants to win (or at least dreams about it). To outright dismiss any other trophy that isn't a League or a Champions League? That I don't get.
 

TimmmV

Member
Also did you just compare pre-season trophies, which are by default excuses to have matches against decent teams in the Summer, to actual trophies like the European Supercup or the equivalent to each country's Supercup? The former don't add prestige (they may or may not add a whole load of money, depending on the actual tournament) and serve a purpose of preparing the team for the season; the latter do add prestige, the latter are always another gold mark in any club's history and are already competitions that any club want to win (and not use as another pre-season match).

Well yeah that's my point. Winning a trophy isn't inherently prestigious, I just proved this point with the extreme example of the Audi Cup. I disagree that they add any notable amount of prestige though, or that they are a "gold mark", its more of a footnote

I'll put it another way - you're a United fan, going on a tour of their club museum and trophy room. How much attention are you going to give to the bit showing their charity shields vs League/FA/European cups or League titles?

If fans would rather win a Champions League than any other trophy in the entire season? Sure, I can get that. It is the trophy the entire European continent wants to win (or at least dreams about it). To outright dismiss any other trophy that isn't a League or a Champions League? That I don't get.

The Europa League, and League and FA cups are both legit trophies to be proud of too -its not limiting to just the League and CL
 

Beefy

Member
The difference here is that Ajax plays in a quite competitive league at home in front of big crowds, played a full run in an European Cup and these are professional players and these kind of basic errors shouldn't happen at this level. I guess the coach should have prepared them better for this game.

What I was getting at is the situation can get to people. I just think the team is far too young and needs a few older players to help the youngsters out. Their inexperience of a big occasion got to them big time.
 

RocknRola

Member
Well yeah that's my point. Winning a trophy isn't inherently prestigious, I just proved this point with the extreme example of the Audi Cup. I disagree that they add any notable amount of prestige though, or that they are a "gold mark", its more of a footnote

I'll put it another way - you're a United fan, going on a tour of their club museum and trophy room. How much attention are you going to give to the bit showing their charity shields vs League/FA/European cups or League titles?



The Europa League, and League and FA cups are both legit trophies to be proud of too -its not limiting to just the League and CL

You didn't really prove anything though. You're comparing apples to oranges. Pre-season trophies are never about the trophy, they're about the actual match(es), preparing the team against teams of a similar level and in some cases definitely about the money (that US tournament apparently pays quite a few millions to the top tier teams in it).

You can't say that about any Supercup. I can't think of any team that would walk into the European Supercup or a national Supercup with the sole objective of just getting the team ready for the 1st fixture of their respective league. They play to win.

Take for example this coming European Supercup. It's gonna be Man.U vs RM or Juve. That's as big a match as you could ever get, in any competiton, worthy of a CL final even. Let's assume Man.U win it. Will fans just "not care" because it's a Supercup?

Likewise, should Chelsea fans treat the Community Shield as a friendly as well? Even if it's against a top 4/5 team/rival? That makes no sense. I'm sorry, I'll just never get that mentality.

Any official competition that my team takes part in, you're damn sure I'll want them to win and I'll be pissed if they don't give it their all. There is a reason the classic European giants have so many trophies in the first place, they weren't just given to them.
 

TimmmV

Member
You didn't really prove anything though. You're comparing apples to oranges. Pre-season trophies are never about the trophy, they're about the actual match(es), preparing the team against teams of a similar level and in some cases definitely about the money (that US tournament apparently pays quite a few millions to the top tier teams in it).

You can't say that about any Supercup. I can't think of any team that would walk into the European Supercup or a national Supercup with the sole objective of just getting the team ready for the 1st fixture of their respective league. They play to win.

Your 2nd paragraph is basically how the charity shield is seen as it is now, thats my point - its not apples to oranges, because they're basically treated the same by clubs

Take for example this coming European Supercup. It's gonna be Man.U vs RM or Juve. That's as big a match as you could ever get, in any competiton, worthy of a CL final even. Let's assume Man.U win it. Will fans just "not care" because it's a Supercup?

Do you think the fans of the losing team will be particularly bothered? IMO the less a team cares about winning a trophy, the less meaning it carries.

Likewise, should Chelsea fans treat the Community Shield as a friendly as well? Even if it's against a top 4/5 team/rival? That makes no sense. I'm sorry, I'll just never get that mentality.

Any official competition that my team takes part in, you're damn sure I'll want them to win and I'll be pissed if they don't give it their all. There is a reason the classic European giants have so many trophies in the first place, they weren't just given to them.

Plenty of Chelsea (and other teams) fans do treat the charity shield as a friendly, its been widely acknowledged

No fan doesn't want their team to win every game or trophy they compete in - it would be stupid to suggest otherwise. But to pretend that the charity shield or super cup come remotely close in importance to any other cup competition is nonsense.
 

RocknRola

Member
Your 2nd paragraph is basically how the charity shield is seen as it is now, thats my point - its not apples to oranges, because they're basically treated the same by clubs



Do you think the fans of the losing team will be particularly bothered? IMO the less a team cares about winning a trophy, the less meaning it carries.



Plenty of Chelsea (and other teams) fans do treat the charity shield as a friendly, its been widely acknowledged

No fan doesn't want their team to win every game or trophy they compete in - it would be stupid to suggest otherwise. But to pretend that the charity shield or super cup come remotely close in importance to any other cup competition is nonsense.

Well, then I can only say that's a very british problem.

You won't see the other top leagues treat Supercups (European or National) like that, at all. And yes, if RM/Juve lose the European Supercup to Man.U you'll see both their supporters and media demanding more from them, as it's only natural. I mean, ffs, winning a League (as hard as it may or may not be) alone = a so-so season for RM and Juve. Literally everything that's official counts and needs to be won, the more the better. That's the level of demand those teams are used to. The only trophy that can calm their fans is a CL, that's the only "excuse" they'll accept for not winning national competitions.


This mentality makes no sense to me, I'm sorry. Using official competions as pre-season matches is beyond me, I just can't get behind that.
 

TimmmV

Member
Well, then I can only say that's a very british problem.

You won't see the other top leagues treat Supercups (European or National) like that, at all. And yes, if RM/Juve lose the European Supercup to Man.U you'll see both their supporters and media demanding more from them, as it's only natural. I mean, ffs, winning a League (as hard as it may or may not be) alone = a so-so season for RM and Juve. Literally everything that's official counts and needs to be won, the more the better. That's the level of demand those teams are used to. The only trophy that can calm their fans is a CL, that's the only "excuse" they'll accept for not winning national competitions.


This mentality makes no sense to me, I'm sorry. Using official competions as pre-season matches is beyond me, I just can't get behind that.

Maybe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ idk

What you've described there sounds more like an combination of the expectation to dominate the domestic league, and placing importance on European competition due to boredom with winning everything domestically all the time, which honestly sounds like the worst of both worlds to me

I would rather have a league trophy that fans will celebrate competing for rather than see as a the bare minimum of a "so-so" season tbh, even if that means treating the super cup as a glorified friendly
 

RocknRola

Member
Maybe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ idk

What you've described there sounds more like an combination of the expectation to dominate the domestic league, and placing importance on European competition due to boredom with winning everything domestically all the time, which honestly sounds like the worst of both worlds to me

I would rather have a league trophy that fans will celebrate competing for rather than see as a the bare minimum of a "so-so" season tbh, even if that means treating the super cup as a glorified friendly

Granted, Juve winning the Italian League these days, as good a team they are, means little... it's been what, 6 in a row, with high likelyhood of being 7 in row next season? Yeah that's....that's not what I would call a thrilling league either lol
 

casiopao

Member
Granted, Juve winning the Italian League these days, as good a team they are, means little... it's been what, 6 in a row, with high likelyhood of being 7 in row next season? Yeah that's....that's not what I would call a thrilling league either lol

Lol. For Juventus, Scudetto is always and will always be our first priority after that Farsiopoli case lol.

We will get as much Scudetto as much as possible to make sure all other team in Serie A will compete and be happy with that second position lol.

I mean, Juventus had been celebrating this year crazy achievement lol. A historic 6th consecutive Scudetto and 3 consecutive coppa Italia winner which all these no team had ever achieved ever.^^

I would love to see that number keep continuing lol.It will be the best troll for all those other Serie A team for sure as we show them now no matter how deep we fall, we right now is ruling them.^^
 

Jarnet87

Member
The Europa victory puts United in pot 2 of the Champions League draw, Even if they are grouped with one of the big boys they should be able to advance given pots 3 and 4.
 
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