Unpopular Football Opinions

[Azeem]

9 minutes ago, ScoRoss said:

1. The international calendar already includes games in June. This doesn't change that.

2. There are no 'extra weeks' it's just a rearranging of already full weeks.

1. One or two off game in the first week which are mostly a friendly. Very different from having to play a competitive qualifying round throuought the month especially in certain countries. 

2. My point was that even if we have an interrupted club season it will end in May as usual and the international season will be played in June/July

[ScoRoss]

Whatever happens, there needs to be a drastic reorganisation of the football calendar. International football needs re-engerized and perhaps having a run of games for a few weeks can bring it back into the widespread interest. 

Especially in football's developing nations, taking the spotlight off of the EPL and La Liga, they could do with more interest in their own footballing culture and success.

The main thing I'd hope would be an end to the slog of qualification matches having to take place in June and July, at the same time as international tournaments being played. It's laughable that UEFA pretends to care about its smaller nations when it sets them up to fail.

[Azeem]

2 minutes ago, ScoRoss said:

Whatever happens, there needs to be a drastic reorganisation of the football calendar. International football needs re-engerized and perhaps having a run of games for a few weeks can bring it back into the widespread interest. 

Especially in football's developing nations, taking the spotlight off of the EPL and La Liga, they could do with more interest in their own footballing culture and success.

The main thing I'd hope would be an end to the slog of qualification matches having to take place in June and July, at the same time as international tournaments being played. It's laughable that UEFA pretends to care about its smaller nations when it sets them up to fail.

First thing for that has to cut down the number of games in European club seaaon.

 

[ScoRoss]

1 minute ago, Azeem said:

First thing for that has to cut down the number of games in European club seaaon.

 

Absolutely. That's why I mention targeting the qualification rounds for UEFA's club tournaments. 

Never mind creating a third competition, first they need to at least revert the Europa League back to straight knockout.

[SirBalon]

16 minutes ago, ScoRoss said:

Absolutely. That's why I mention targeting the qualification rounds for UEFA's club tournaments. 

Never mind creating a third competition, first they need to at least revert the Europa League back to straight knockout.

I'd have the three European competitions return... (European Cup, European Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Cup) All in a knockout form.  Obviously the Champions League (European Cup) would lose the clubs revenue on a straight knock-out format but it would also create uncertainty with lesser clubs having more of a chance to create upsets.

[Azeem]

A group of death is a group which has no clear favourites like the group H from this years world cup Japan, Poland, Senegal, Colombia

Not a group which has one/two favorites or clear favorites like Spain and Portugal's group from this year. 

[Stan]

4 minutes ago, Azeem said:

A group of death is a group which has no clear favourites like the group H from this years world cup Japan, Poland, Senegal, Colombia

Not a group which has one/two favorites or clear favorites like Spain and Portugal's group from this year. 

Not sure that's that unpopular an opinion? 

[Azeem]

Just now, Stan said:

Not sure that's that unpopular an opinion? 

You always hear the word Open Group with group which doesn't has a big team but all teams have a chance of progressing.

Group of Death is always used when a big team is in it. 

[Smiley Culture]

Agree that Azeem’s opinion isn’t unpopular at all. 

Group H in the World Cup was most Group of Death like than others. 

[Dan+]

On 14/11/2018 at 22:26, Smiley Culture said:

There should be a period at the end of a domestic season that is dedicated to International Football. Take the new calendar for Internationals, it’s very stop, start.

We’re in November and we’ve had three International breaks already, it just feels like the Premier League has never really got going and any momentum generated is quickly exitinguised by an International break and I say this as someone who doesn’t support a Premier League team. 

There’s at least one more International break due in this season, maybe two, if the Premier League started at the same time it does now and didn’t have the International breaks, it could end a few weeks earlier than it currently does and then there could be a dedicated block of International games. For example, the Nations League could be contested in May and June over a four or five week period. 

I think it would benefit the Premier League and probably the national team too, I think dedicated blocks like that would probably drown some of the resentment shown to the national side. 

I've always thought that the whole thing should be done in a period of its own. It's so frustrating kicking off a new season and within three weeks you're already on a break, rinse and repeat this again twice. It's even worse in Spain and Germany where you get sometimes just one game in before the first break.

I think it would benefit the national team as people are going to take more of an interest in it, rather than the whole "uuuurgh bloody internationals again" - which was still happening this season despite in my opinion, the best connection between England and the fans that I can remember.

The question is, what time would you dedicate to it? I'd probably go with February.

[Dan+]

Agree on the Europa League too. The finalists each play 15 games at least (admittedly it's extremely rare a side makes the final that was in before the groups, although Dnipro did in 2015, they played 17). It's completely excessive.

[Vegan Kel]

Character is more important than ability (to a degree) when it comes to being a top player. This is why Pogba is not and never will be a top player. Mentally fragile and too distracted by things you'd expect a kid to be interested in

[Dr. Gonzo]

16 minutes ago, Salford Kel said:

Character is more important than ability (to a degree) when it comes to being a top player. This is why Pogba is not and never will be a top player. Mentally fragile and too distracted by things you'd expect a kid to be interested in

I agree with this. Top level pros are all very fucking good at football, but the best players are the ones that show character and bottle. It's why you sometimes see players fail when they make a step up and there's no good reason for it - Robbie Keane fluffing his shots from 1 yard out comes to mind.

[Inverted]

The "United Way" is as much a myth as the "West Ham Way".

United's modern identity is basically just "we won loads with Ferguson", and you can't build a philosophy on one man when that man was probably the most flexible and least ideological manager in history. 

[Guest]

15 hours ago, Salford Kel said:

Character is more important than ability (to a degree) when it comes to being a top player. This is why Pogba is not and never will be a top player. Mentally fragile and too distracted by things you'd expect a kid to be interested in

I agree on the first part but not the second. Pogba when he was at Juve was an outrageous talent and I think that came down to Juve being a more serious club these days than United.

[Cicero]

4 minutes ago, Blue said:

I agree on the first part but not the second. Pogba when he was at Juve was an outrageous talent and I think that came down to Juve being a more serious club these days than United.

Think it came down to the amount of space Pogba is given in Italy. 

Never saw him perform anything close in the Champions League with Juve. 

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Cicero said:

Think it came down to the amount of space Pogba is given in Italy. 

Never saw him perform anything close in the Champions League with Juve. 

He did somewhat but in the UCL he was never ever as bad as he's shown at United. In Italy he was outrageous, in the UCL he was very good. I think it came down to the system, @Batard nailed it a few years ago saying he's very tactically naive.

[Cicero]

13 minutes ago, Blue said:

He did somewhat but in the UCL he was never ever as bad as he's shown at United. In Italy he was outrageous, in the UCL he was very good. I think it came down to the system, @Batard nailed it a few years ago saying he's very tactically naive.

He isn't given the freedom as he was in Italy in my opinion. I've been keeping an eye on Bakayoko as well, and even he looks to have improved with the amount of time he is given on the ball. The pace of the premier league doesn't do well with players who like to linger with the ball. 

[Stan]

22 minutes ago, Cicero said:

He isn't given the freedom as he was in Italy in my opinion. I've been keeping an eye on Bakayoko as well, and even he looks to have improved with the amount of time he is given on the ball. The pace of the premier league doesn't do well with players who like to linger with the ball. 

I may not have seen Bakayoko as much as you but whenever I've seen him he's been average at best. Sloppy in possession, bit reckless when tackling. I didn't see many issues with him handling the pace of the game so maybe it was a confidence thing and needing to get settled in properly. He didn't do greatly in the Europa league game I saw him in against Olympiakos last week.

[Cicero]

6 minutes ago, Stan said:

I may not have seen Bakayoko as much as you but whenever I've seen him he's been average at best. Sloppy in possession, bit reckless when tackling. I didn't see many issues with him handling the pace of the game so maybe it was a confidence thing and needing to get settled in properly. He didn't do greatly in the Europa league game I saw him in against Olympiakos last week.

Just seen him last week, and the bloke was able to receive the ball, control it, and turn around and pass it forward. No ounce of pressure. Totally relaxed. As opposed to against Watford nearly a year ago, where he received the ball with a Watford player right on his arse. Couldn't turn around, miscontrolled it and lost it.

That is the thing with Italy in my opinion. It is so tactical that the pace of the league is virtually non exsistent compared to the prem. 

[Dan+]

8 hours ago, Cicero said:

Just seen him last week, and the bloke was able to receive the ball, control it, and turn around and pass it forward. No ounce of pressure. Totally relaxed. As opposed to against Watford nearly a year ago, where he received the ball with a Watford player right on his arse. Couldn't turn around, miscontrolled it and lost it.

That is the thing with Italy in my opinion. It is so tactical that the pace of the league is virtually non exsistent compared to the prem. 

Going off your topic a bit here, but I've always found this wording a bit peculiar - is what Watford are doing in that example not classed as tactical? The tactic, of course, is to close down.

[Inverted]

13 hours ago, Dan said:

Going off your topic a bit here, but I've always found this wording a bit peculiar - is what Watford are doing in that example not classed as tactical? The tactic, of course, is to close down.

Mostly comes from British people being generally incapable of understanding that coaching can improve attack as well as defence. 

The common football fan sees defensive work as something the team works on, and attack as something that teams are best left to work out individually. Hence the talk that Klopp and Guardiola are seen as "giving their teams freedom", and Mourinho is seen as overly-tactical, even though the exact opposite is true. 

United are shit at attacking because Mourinho leaves it up to them to work it out as they go, whereas modern coaches like Guardiola work intensely on attacking patterns.

Hence a tactical game in English normally means "defensive", when actually of you see a really tactical game between top coaches, there will usually be lots of chances.

[Cicero]

13 hours ago, Dan said:

Going off your topic a bit here, but I've always found this wording a bit peculiar - is what Watford are doing in that example not classed as tactical? The tactic, of course, is to close down.

If you want to get technical, yes. However, pressuring off the ball with such pace isn't really worked on with most clubs in Italy. It is more structured with a focus on organisation. 

[Guest]

In penalty shootouts, having your best taker go 5th is retarted. You're not guaranteed to even get to that, it just seems like a total "the best player should win the game" mentality, and yet it doesn't work too often. The worst part about it is mainstream teams don't seem to learn from their mistakes.

[Cicero]

Ronaldo paid the price in 2012.