news and gossip
Manchester City's new £150m academy: The English 'Milan Lab' from which they aim to rule Europe
A map of the new Etihad Campus
Manchester City have paid such extraordinary attention to detail with their magnificent new £150m City Football Academy that sleep experts were called in to design the players’ bedrooms, selecting wallpaper with light circular patterns. “It’s very soothing,’’ said Brian Marwood, the academy director who has dedicated six years to making the club’s training and player-development centre is as close to perfection as possible.
Players of the future train here, they also attend a local grammar school for their education
City have left nothing to chance in the pursuit of excellence. Ambition is everywhere. On what Marwood calls “Patrick’s pitch”, Vieira continues moulding his Elite Development Squad as the club works towards a target of a first team of “four to six” home-grown players. Vieira himself continues to be nurtured as a future manager.
Linked to the Etihad by a bridge across Alan Turing Way, the CFA is a footballing field of dreams that also serves the community, with a new college and park space, as well as extensive employment, but is primarily there to give City a sustainable, successful future. In the EDS changing-room, Denzeil Boadou, a prolific playmaker for the Under-18s, was in the CFA early on Thursday morning, doing some extra training, chasing the dream. He walked across, shook hands with Marwood and this visitor, and went back to work.read the rest here
overview of academy
7000 seat capacity for women and youth teams. The men's senior teams are expected to attend both sets of games when they are not training/prepping for their own matches
80 percent of materials and workforce were locally sourced
Click to viewA video of Manchester City's new grounds
Racist jeers at Russian soccer game renew concerns for 2018 World Cup
Black players in Russia have a hard time
The year before, fans of Lokomotiv Moscow raised a giant banner displaying a banana to chide Nigerian striker Peter Odemwingie for allegedly not meeting their expectations on the field. However, the club was not sanctioned for the banner, and Alexey Sorokin - then-secretary general of the RFU and CEO of Russia’s 2018 FIFA World Cup bid committee - insisted it was not racist.
“If there would be another player - from Russia, Denmark, Norway or Japan, for example - the reaction could be the same,” Sorokin said. “In Russia ‘to get a banana’ means ‘to fail a test somewhere.’”
His disregard for the banner angered international sports fans, many of who alleged he too held racist beliefs.
Such incidents are particularly concerning to the soccer community given that Russia is slated to host the FIFA World Cup in 2018 - during which players and fans of all races and ethnicities will be present.read more
Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are too good for La Liga - it should not be this easy
Ronaldo and Messi - are their feats too easy
This weekly rampage - entertaining though it is - needs to be constrained if Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are not to shred the dignity of Spanish league football, where the two maestros are turning it into basketball.
Have too many La Liga clubs fatalistically accepted the Ronaldo-Messi duopoly? Do they now see it as the unavoidable pain in Spain? The numbers are now so vast that you wonder whether defenders now see the Real Madrid and Barcelona goal-getters as untouchables. At least they now know how the bull feels.
Either way stats are thrilling, first, and alarming second. Ronaldo’s hat-trick against Celta Vigo at the weekend broke yet another record. The self-titled CR7 has now scored three or more goals 23 times in league games, beating the 22 of Alfredo Di Stefano and Telmo Zarra, whose all-time league scoring record was broken by Messi two weeks ago.read more
FA Cup Draw 2014: Full List of 3rd-Round Fixtures and Dates Released
Arsenal won this cup 2-13/2014 season. Their first trophy in six years
The big guns of English football announced their much-anticipated arrival on this season's FA Cup platform on Monday, where the nation discovered who would be clashing against who in the competition's third round.
The 44 combined teams from the Premier League and the Championship entered the mix and will now seek to help in sorting the wheat from the chaff after the next schedule of fixtures was announced. see the table here.
Chatter from the sidelines
- Louis Van Gaal Warns Gary Neville After Manchester United Labelled Pub Team shall we step outside?
- Pep Guardiola advises Japan's rugby team before World Cup because Rugby is about passing, too
- Bayern Munich: Why It's Time for Pep Guardiola to Give Xabi Alonso a Break and give Basti a go
- Xavi reads the riot act to Xabi: "His statements (about Neuer) were exaggerated" another song that will never end, it will go on and on my friend
- Liverpool looking to offload Balotelli in January Read more
- Have you heard about Manchester City's NEW centre which cost them £200m (in contrast to Southampton's new digs that cost £40m). No you havent? here is another article
- Cesena hires Di Carlo as coach after firing Bisoli read more
- Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo would find it harder to score in Serie A, according to fellow marksman Fernando Llorente. tell me more
Social Media
So John Green is having a nervous breakdown. He supports Liverpool but sponosrs AFC Wimbledon. Both teams are drawn against each other in the third round of the FA cup
Blind sends a message in a bottle from home
The three Spanish lads of Manchester United say Happy Crimbo
Lionel Messi and his family
Pic spam
Arsenal players in Christmas jumpers. The jumpers are breeding, y'all
Oh, Alexis!
Aresnal forwards Yankey and Carter get in on the action
Arsenal ladies football squad get in on the action
Oh, Santi. Oh, no
Match pictures- Southampton 1- 2 Manchester United
van Persie found two goals in the back of the net
We're in third place on top of the table!
Luke Shaw looking less chavvy nowadays. Slimmed down a bit too, he was getting chunky back then
NGL, I was surprised that van Gaal didn't name van Persie captain
Southampton has some good looking young players
Damn, Foster
Training Day
I'm trying to avoid Bale and Ronaldo, as such the pickings are slim\
Marcelo of Real Madrid training for their match against Lugorets.
James' hamstring has him out of action for a while
OP here: cheers for reading this post. Will do round ups tomorrow, because all the stuff about how teams are going to play tonight is boring speculation. Tbh, most of you here offer better analysis than the crap I just read this morning. Ronadlo will play tonight? You don't say!