The Evo-Web Football Thoughts Blog

Flipper the Priest said:
Pity the clip doesn't show the aftermath, and the sheer confusion on the ref's face. So embarrassing.
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Footballers are a different kind of idiot's ,you rarely see this in basketball/icehockey/handball/American football/rugby ,or I'd say you never ever see it there.
But in football ,pretty much every other game there's someone being a wanker pulling shit similar to this.
Did the ref card himself for the "assault":)
 
rockstrongo said:
Footballers are a different kind of idiot's ,you rarely see this in basketball/icehockey/handball/American football/rugby ,or I'd say you never ever see it there.
But in football ,pretty much every other game there's someone being a wanker pulling shit similar to this.
Did the ref card himself for the "assault":)
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Yeah it's a pretty common trope in the UK on social media that rugby fans will give it the old, pious "you'd never get this in rugby". Well that's because it's shite and no cunt plays it so away and drink each others' piss you fat cunts.

I don't like rugby.

But it's true - some of the antics on a football pitch are disgraceful. I don't watch much South American football but from what I have I dare say it's far worse there. Particularly Brazil, where it seems culturally ingrained.
 
Flipper the Priest said:
Yeah it's a pretty common trope in the UK on social media that rugby fans will give it the old, pious "you'd never get this in rugby". Well that's because it's shite and no cunt plays it so away and drink each others' piss you fat cunts.

I don't like rugby.

But it's true - some of the antics on a football pitch are disgraceful. I don't watch much South American football but from what I have I dare say it's far worse there. Particularly Brazil, where it seems culturally ingrained.
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Yes ,it's pretty common there.
I read quite a few interviews on Italian fans and players ,and they see football a bit differently ,like an opera (or at least more than just 90 min of sports) and the drama is suppose to be there.
Maybe that's why it's more common?
Even though it's happening a lot on our pitches as well
 
rockstrongo said:
Probably not , he'll keep saying someone pushed him for sure.
I still wonder why stuff like this isn't a bookable offence retroactive?
Or to stamp it out ,a very hefty fine.
"10k for being a cunt"
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Yeah surely it's unsportsmanlike conduct for a start!

I'd introduce embarrassing penalties. Any diving they have to stand in the corner for 10 minutes with an "I'm a cheating twat" hat on or similar. Then they are not allowed any free kicks for the next two games, the opposition can kick them as much as they like. That should stamp it out. Tongue in cheek but it would work.
 
mattmid said:
Yeah surely it's unsportsmanlike conduct for a start!

I'd introduce embarrassing penalties. Any diving they have to stand in the corner for 10 minutes with an "I'm a cheating twat" hat on or similar. Then they are not allowed any free kicks for the next two games, the opposition can kick them as much as they like. That should stamp it out. Tongue in cheek but it would work.
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Yes!!!
Like a time out,maybe have the Super Nanny coming out?
 
Meet Varberg (on the bus home) who just beat our fiercest rivals at their (our acctually) ground ,making sure they missed out on winning the league.
Within an hour people had transferred over €5k to the teams "fines" account ,making sure they could have a few beers once the season is over.
Ha ha ha.
 
Assists. A huge part of the game but a pointless stat to keep. Surely chances created should be the stat kept? For example someone playing for Brighton could have 100 created chances and with the likes of Maupay on the end of them they'd probably only have 3 assists. Also didn't Wolves have something like 50 shots this season before they scored? Anyway my point being the player can't do any more than create the chance so the total assists depends largely on the player taking the shot therefore the player with the most assists is not necessarily the player creating the most chances across the league.
 
I feel something is missing in nowadays top-flight "Big 5" European Football Leagues, which was not the case 15 years ago or more. I can't really pinpoint what it is. I don't know if it's the takeovers, the lack of homegrown connections, the rise of social media, the predictability, or the star culture, to me modern Euro top 5 league football seems too super-stylized, a bit empty even if it has the best talent in the world.... it feels a bit soulless to me..

At least from my vantage point, watching the big Euro Leagues in South American TV channels (which unfortunately, focuses on the giants), does not satisfy me the same way that watching the J-League, the Peruvian League, Korean Second Division, the Argentinean League, does.

I remember growing up back in the 90's/early 2000's, big European football seemed much more.. accessible somehow. I know they were still giants, with a lot of money and influence, but things felt less.. corporate. It felt way more real and very cool, entertaining and relatable. Football had a much more "local flavor" (playing styles, personality of the fans, the city seemed to be more connected to the teams). I miss the unpredictability also. I don't really know how else to explain it, but English teams FELT English, Italian teams FELT Italian. Even with all the international singings, which I always thought was cool, the teams retained a lot of identity. When a Ghanaian player went to play for an Italian team, he brought Ghanaian flavor to the team, which was great and added to the personality, even if the team still FELT local. It's difficult to explain, I guess. Now when I watch the big teams in the Champions League, they seem more like corporations and less like teams representing a fanbase.

As you guys probably know, I am a big fan of South American and Asian Football (especially J-League and K-League). All of my Master League Stories have focused on these teams so far, and I have an emotional connection to these leagues. As I am South American myself, I really love not only the Colombian League, but also the Peruvian, and Argentinean Leagues, which I find have a lot of passion, and in Asia, the Korean and Japanese Leagues really appeal to me for emotional reasons. I would love to get back to European Football, it's just difficult to see where to start. Maybe a smaller league, or a mid table or second division team might satisfy what I'm looking for.
 
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millossobek said:
I feel something is missing in nowadays top-flight "Big 5" European Football Leagues, which was not the case 15 years ago or more. I can't really pinpoint what it is. I don't know if it's the takeovers, the lack of homegrown connections, the rise of social media, or the star culture, to me modern Euro top 5 league football seems too super-stylized, a bit empty even if it has the best talent in the world.... it feels a bit soulless to me..

At least from my vantage point, watching the big Euro Leagues in South American TV channels (which unfortuantely, focuses on the giants), does not satisfy me the same way that watching the J-League, the Peruvian League, Korean Second Division, the Argentinean League, does.

I remember growing up back in the 90's/early 2000's, big European football seemed much more.. accessible somehow. I know they were still giants, with a lot of money and influence, but things felt less.. corporate. It felt way more real and very cool, entertaining and relatable. Football had a much more "local flavor" (playing styles, personality of the fans, the city seemed to be more connected to the teams). I miss the unpredictability also. I don't really know how else to explain it, but English teams FELT English, Italian teams FELT Italian. Even with all the international singings, which I always thought was cool, the teams retained a lot of identity. When a Ghanaian player went to play for an Italian team, he brought Ghanaian flavor to the team, which was great and added to the personality, even if the team still FELT local. It's difficult to explain, I guess. Now when I watch the big teams in the Champions League, they seem more like corporations and less like teams representing a fanbase.

As you guys probably know, I am a big fan of South American and Asian Football (especially J-League and K-League). All of my Master League Stories have focused on these teams so far, and I have an emotional connection to these leagues. As I am South American myself, I really love not only the Colombian League, but also the Peruvian, and Argentinean Leagues, which I find have a lot of passion, and in Asia, the Korean and Japanese Leagues really appeal to me for emotional reasons. I would love to get back to European Football, it's just difficult to see where to start. Maybe a smaller league, or a mid table or second division team might satisfy what I'm looking for.
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Globalisation and capitalism, plain and simple. No way back now, I'm afraid! Where there's money to be made, authenticity disappears.

The 'Big Five' leagues is a trigger for me. To me, there are four big leagues. As a Scot I can't accept the French league being considered on the same level. A HUGE factor in 'big' is silverware and they have two European trophies. Two. Including one very dirty European Cup. Scotland has three and a Super Cup for good measure. France's stature is conflated with that of their national team and the power of the nation. Their club football is behind Netherlands and Portugal for starters.
 
Without really getting into a whole "capitalism" debate, I think it's almost inevitable in the modern world for teams to want to make a profit, and be economically sound. That's not really my issue, as teams from back in the day were also looking to make a profit. But there's just no control over it, it's just gotten out of hand, the talent is being concentrated in lesser and lesser teams, which leads to more predictability, etc.. I completely agree with your observation on the lack of authenticity!

In terms of "big 5" or "big 4". That's cool, I understand your point of view regarding the French League not being at the same level of the other 4 leagues..

I guess what I mean is: Things just seem too "streamlined" now. It's like they're trotting out superplayers in superkits and in shiny superstadiums. But where's the SOUL? Where can I find an emotional connection in the big leagues? Mostly I see is just a culture of celebrity and over-spending.. I don't get the same chills I got back in the day when for example, an older Roberto Baggio went back to unheralded Brescia, or the magic of the Van Basten/Gullit/Rijkaard partnership at Milan. Everything, from the Champions League to the Ballon d'OR feels pre-fabricated.. How can I get that magic back? Europe is at the center of football and I feel like I'm missing out on what made it great and appealing to me, what I actually most love about football, which is an emotional connection!

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Everything is quite commercialized and , how do I put it.. made for money and entertainment than a sport
Oh and the takeovers too, they really are killing off the clubs and leagues
 
I would like to see more South-American football from countries like Argentina (most of all) Colombia or Chile and Uruguay (but NOT Brazil).
I'm also bored with European football.
I'm a fan of two teams: Spurs in England and KRC Genk here in Belgium. If Spurs have to play Genk (i would like that and it's possible right at the moment, could be in the Conference league, next round), i would want Genk to win because they are the underdogs.
And that is also the reason i love football. I also lover cycling, but in cycling (and certainly in Grand Tours) the best competitor usually wins. Football is more a game than a very athletic sports and that is the reason why surprises are possible and even likely. But now that big money is in football, things have changed. Big investors hate predictability and the way television money is allocated makes it almost impossible to have surprises.

Which clubs can win the CL? 3 English clubs (Liverpool, City and Chelsea) 2 Spanish clubs (Real Madrid and Barcelona), one German club (Bayern) and one club from Qatar, i mean France (PDG, theoretically they can win, i hope they never do...). An Italian Club? I doubt it.

What i would really want is that Ajax would win it...imo they are the world's biggest club and not those super rich giants.
 
@Stan I've often thought it must be quite disheartening being an Ajax fan at times, although they keep producing talent so that at least is exciting to see come through, but every time they have a bunch come through like recently, they go a long way in the Champions League and then the vultures come calling and it's back to square one again. Monaco had the same thing happen a few years back too.

I meant to ask you as well, there seems to be a quite a surprise leader of the Belgian league at the moment with Union St Gilloise. I know they are owned by the Brighton owner so I imagine they've had some investment? One of our old players plays there, Christian Burgess. Really pleased to see him doing well, he was great for us and did a lot of community stuff at the club too. A genuinely nice guy.
 
Ha Union, what a great story. Before World War Two Union were the biggest team in Belgium. They still have the record of the most matches without a loss, 60 matches. A friend of my grandfather played for that team. Later Union were completely overshadowed by Anderlecht, and somewhere in the seventies they got relegated and played all these years in second, third and even fourth division. Bloom bought the team when they were in second division and last year they were champion in the second division and got promoted.

They have this beautiful old stadium in the centre of Brussels, but none of it has a roof and they can’t renew it because it is seen as heritage. They train 3 km from where I live and that is not in Brussels but 45 km north of Brussels. As a matter of fact, their training ground is closer to Antwerp than to Brussels and closer to the stadium of at least 3 other first division clubs than their own stadium.

They have a very cheap team. They do all their transfers data driven and unearth hidden gems like forward Undav who played in the German fourth division. Their other forward ( who had his first cap for our national team against Wales. Couple of weeks ago) comes from Genk and a 4 or 5 years ago he was seen as Belgium’s biggest talent, but he got two consecutive cruciate knee ligament injuries on both knees. Most people were sure he would never play top football, but together with Undav he is sensational (his name is Dante Van Zeir).

Union has one player from Brighton on loan, the Japanese midfielder Minamoto. He is only playing for a 6 weeks, but he is very good. Trossard saw him with Brighton and he thinks he wil be a very big player in the near future.

Union is everybody's second favourite team. I really hope they can win our league, but the general consensus is that in the end they will falter and might be happy to reach the play-offs. Great story and they play very good football.
 
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See, this is what I'm talking about. :TU: So many great stories waiting to be told from some of the lesser known leagues. That was a nice summary of a team I wasn't aware of (Union), in a lesser known league (Belgium), very interesting stuff about their history, heritage and transfer policies..

I am sure every single league in the world has so many of these stories, yet the media still feeds the same stories from the same teams, which gets old pretty fast.

Also @Stan if you are interested in South American football, I can probably give you an introduction to some of the leagues. I think the most important thing is to pick a team, if you're gonna follow any of the leagues.. That way you get more into it. If you need some help or assistance with any of these leagues, let me know. :)
 
Great day of Serie A yesterday, Milan won as easily as expected against Salernitana, but I would have thought it would be much harder for Inter at Olimpico against Roma.... Really a poor performance by Mourinho's team. It was not a surprise that they had a hard time to create chances, especially without Pellegrini and Tammy, but at least they could have been well organized in defense, instead of letting Inter score so easily. The 1st goal for example looks like a bad joke, and how easy they let Dumfries score, the poor pressing by just 1 or 2 players without any support by the other team mates that never put any pressure on Inter players... and giving away Dzeko for 0 (just 1 million if Inter qualifies for CL next year I think) and buying Abraham and Shomurodov (what do they see in this guy, I don't have an idea) for about 60 million makes them look like fools now. Brozovic had a game like a nice walk in the park in a sunny Sunday morning and could easily play his passes, Bastoni was able to constantly attack on the left side, Calha being on fire recently and Correa is also a nice addition to the team. Conte won scudetto but it was not much fun watching the games, now with Inzaghi it is much more attractive football and hopefully in the end also as successful as last year, at least in Serie A. In CL it is now already better than all the last years. Now we will have a big challenge in Madrid and then let's wait for the draw. I don't think we are title contenders but maybe we can reach quarterfinals.

Napoli losing at home to Atalanta makes it an even more interesting title race, it is hard for Napoli with many injuries and not much depth in squad to keep up the pace of the start of this season. Much will depend on the european cups this week. For example if Milan finishes 4th it could help them more than being 3rd, having to play an extra round of Euro League in February. But I hope for them to be 2nd, I always support the Italians in Europe. Atalanta is looking very dangerous again, they do a fantastic job for years and extended the contract of their coach this week so they can continue their story, with a big game against Villarreal ahead.
 
I love this man:

Screenshot_20211205-122633_Twitter.jpg

A Californian ray of sunshine on an absolutely disgusting day yesterday.

Mad how even when you're freezing cold and soaking wet it all disappears when your team is scoring and winning.
 
VAR Officials. If they can't watch the replay of Maddison yesterday and not see he threw himself into the defender's leg then what's the point? His legs are already off the ground and he's falling before he initiates contact. If that isn't clear and obvious then we might as well just forget it.
 
For those of you are interested in Union, here is a link if you want to see some pictures of their stadium:
https://staantribune.nl/themas-en-verhalen/union-saint-gilloise-terugkeer-van-een-monument-fotorepo/

Imagine if they should have to play European football next season.

Meanwhile, they are still top of the league with a bonus of 4 points before Club Brugge (the big favourites, they are becoming the Belgian Bayern Munchen) and 7 before Antwerp.

KRC Genk, my favourite team are having a very bad season, so i hope Union will become champions, but that seems impossible.
 
gabe.paul.logan said:
All these SOME postponed games again make no sense. You had time to prepare after last year. You have deep enough squad anyway.
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Don't agree at all. Not postponing and pretending that clubs had time to prepare will disadvantage the small clubs even more because they have smaller squads. This from the perspective of football.

And now from a more general perspective (health ans well being)

Your reasoning is totally wrong. Football is not known for the best governance, but this time every single government was caught unaware by the current wave of Covid. So don't blame football clubs for not being prepared.

It is a very good thing that matches are postponed, more matches should be postponed, because this is more important than football. This is about health and for some it's about life and death.

We all have seen that football played a considerable role in the spread of covid (Atalanta-Valencia? and Liverpool-Atletico Madrid, not sure about the exact matches but i know that both Atalanta (in Milan) and Liverpool were implicated). In a wave like this one, international football is madness, and i love football as much as you.
 
Stan said:
Don't agree at all. Not postponing and pretending that clubs had time to prepare will disadvantage the small clubs even more because they have smaller squads. This from the perspective of football.

And now from a more general perspective (health ans well being)

Your reasoning is totally wrong. Football is not known for the best governance, but this time every single government was caught unaware by the current wave of Covid. So don't blame football clubs for not being prepared.

It is a very good thing that matches are postponed, more matches should be postponed, because this is more important than football. This is about health and for some it's about life and death.

We all have seen that football played a considerable role in the spread of covid (Atalanta-Valencia? and Liverpool-Atletico Madrid, not sure about the exact matches but i know that both Atalanta (in Milan) and Liverpool were implicated). In a wave like this one, international football is madness, and i love football as much as you.
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Then postpone all fixtures. Some teams get more rest time than others this way so its not really fair from that point. Or some small teams looked forward to some fixtures as bigger teams were off form or missing big players due to injury. Now all thats gone.
Also there were some international fixtures last year and this year where you had to suck it up if you had missing players due to Covid. Its either health & safety or not. But this "kinda" approach doesnt make sense because probably fairplay and advertisement money comes into play too. I think we all experience different agendas and hybrid safety regulations in our personal lifes too.

All doesnt make much sense. And im with u on the safety part. Rules should be more strict OR dont make exceptions and let the teams play with youth squad players, more subs.
 
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