Europa league

[jazzypom]

Comments

[marsyke]

England are ranked 4th in the coefficient list over the past 3 years but of course, it's over 5 years so they can make up for it next season, although Germany will jump over them.

http://www.uefa.com/womenschampionsleague/video/index.html: the highlights of the UWCL final. UEFA did have a twitter account dedicated to it and stuff, so they try https://twitter.com/uwcl. It's the media who have to start pay attention to it more because the public will follow. Over 18 000 fans in the stadium, that's more than a lot of EL matches for example.

I read a new rumour about De Bruyne today: almost £60M to join United. I wonder if he'll break Hazard's transfer record for a Belgian player.

Also if you want horrible traffic, try Brussels.

Traffic in Brussels is that bad?

[jazzypom]

In London, ever since they introduced the congestion charge, it's gone from terribad to just plain bad. But Roman drivers are crazy, the cars always have dints and dents, because they don't seem to care where they stop- I mean, park. >:(

RE: Traffic in Brussels is that bad?

[marsyke]

Lmao, they don't do the parking bumping thing, that's true. But the roads are a death trap, just last week it was in a traffic jam on Saturday evening! 2 cars got into a collision and they were filling out the forms right in the middle of a 5-lane highway. It's madness.
The Guardian even wrote an article about it: http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/aug/28/belgium-worst-traffic-europe-brussels-antwerp-congestion

And for cyclists it's even worse:

RE: Traffic in Brussels is that bad?

[lied_ohne_worte]

Oh, I didn't realise that about Brussels. I found the driving in Belgium so really comfortable (was in another region of course) - it all seemed slower and more relaxed than in Germany.

That video.... what a brave man.

Of course you can get very dangerous places on bike lanes here, too, but I don't think I've ever seen so many bike lanes blatantly blocked by posts and things. Tram rails in the street, though... there is a place below my university where people fall so often by putting their wheels into the track that the student organisation was calling for witness accounts to pressure the city and university to do something. I fell there once, too - tore the foam thing from my bike handle really deeply, and had huge hematomes on my leg, side, and breast on one side.

[untxi]

i've driven in quite a few places in europe since we road trip often, but absolutely nothing so far has beaten Rome (with Naples a close second). it's crazy, scary and completely unpredictable; neither other drivers nor pedestrians respect ANY. RULES. and the scooters. jfc the scooters.

i hate that both the italian and brazilian leagues are called serie A, it's so confusing!

we're gonna have another managers' musical chairs this transfer season, aren't' we.

i've no idea who they're gonna get, but i highly highly doubt carletto stays another year...

[bleeding_dry]

Brazilians don't call it Série A, though. That's only the official name. So much so that I didn't even realize it wasn't the Italian league when I read the post xD

[untxi]

yeah i know, but i think Portugal is the only other place it gets called the same, imo because most other languages can't pronounce 'ão', lol. i think it gets called serie A pretty much everywhere else...

[bleeding_dry]

Probably, but they could at least go with Brasileiro. It's used here and it's so much more distinct /shrugs

we might suck at football

[untxi]

but at least we'll look pretty while doing it <3

Tradizione, innovazione e design.
Nuova maglia @acmilan 2015/16.
Disponibile qui http://t.co/In3VY2CNBx pic.twitter.com/oPX82305kx
- adidas Italia (@adidasITA) May 14, 2015

RE: we might suck at football

[jazzypom]

That is lovely. Adidas designers did their work on this one.

Re: we might suck at football

[lady_teazle]

What a beautiful jersey!

[untxi]

IF juve manages to win the final, the ensuing bandwagoning will be a total cringefest.

anyway, juve is and always has been a pretty messy club - then again, most italian clubs are. but their relatively recent corruption scandals really weren't pretty, even by serie A standards.
their current CEO marotta seems ok, you know, considering; def better than moggi, who's a weasel and was neck-deep in calciopoli. the club is owned by old italian money (the agnelli family, founders of fiat) which kinda makes it all the snobbish types' club of choice in italy.

if bandwagoning means defence in the english game

[jazzypom]

Will come back, I'm all over that, tbh.

Besides, Pirlo and Buffon deserve it, they've carried Italian football for such a long time.

RE: if bandwagoning means defence in the english game

[untxi]

i don't think this means a calcio revival tbh. serie A is considered very unappealing by most football fans, (especially the more recent ones imo) so the prevailing mentality would have to change A LOT for that to change - the whole football-for-the-entertainment vs football-for-the.results thing we talked about a while ago, not to mention the current notion of what constitutes 'worthy', beautiful football

the ironic thing about EPL's currently catastrophic defensive skills is that they tried to emulate the spaniards but completely missed one of the most important points of possession football, which is to *defend* by preventing your opponent from having the ball. that can be done more artfully, as in barça's peak, or more pragmatically, as in most spain NT matches, the common point being that if you simply play possession football for possession's sake, shit is totally useless.

[lied_ohne_worte]

A day in the life of Arsene Wenger

Pretty fascinating even if you don't support Arsenal - both to learn about how things work, and also to read about a really obsessive personality. I'm honestly surprised that he's still alive with his type of obsession. I know people of that personality type in my line of work too, and while it may lead to good performance, it's not really healthy either physically or psychologically. Still, what he says about how he talks to players and opponent coaches is really quite touching. You can really feel how much he thinks about things.

And the quote of the day comes from the delightfully honest Christoph Kramer, on why he doesn't score (except for, heh, special cases, as Dortmund would be happy to remind him):

"Whenever I come into the dangerous spaces for scoring goals, my hearts starts to skip, and I put it wide again."

Interesting!

[jazzypom]

I do remember reading that Wenger never used to have truck with the English habit of opposing managers having drinks after a game. I'm glad that he's unbending in this regard:

POST-MATCH
More and more I speak to the opposition manager after the game. Often the other manager likes to know what my impression of his team is, and what thoughts I have, so I’m always happy to talk to him about the performance of his players. I also like to know what kind of impression he got from our team, because sometimes you feel the strength of the team better from the opponent’s bench rather than on your own bench.
Most of the time they come to my office after the game, we give them a glass of red wine or good beer and we have a talk. Many times over the years it has been a team who has been lower down the league than us, and they like to know what I think about their team. They like to be encouraged as well because sometimes they are battling to go down.

D'aww. Good for him.

Re: Interesting!

[lied_ohne_worte]

I totally read all of this with his voice in my head, with the accent and all, which made it even better - the wording is very typically him, so I'm sure he wrote it himself or more likely someone interviewed him and wrote it down.

[marsyke]

He's kinda intense, isn't he? But as long as it doesn't pull him under, it's okay.
Nice read, thanks for the link!

Ah Kramer, aren't you a delight.