The Ultimate Soccer Thread 2012-2013 Vol. 3 Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga etc

trunks206 said:
Kyle ******g Walker won PFA young player of the year last year over Sergio Aguero...the award is a joke lets be honest. Plus giving both awards to him makes no sense at all...why not recognize the #2 voted for young player as Bale won the overall one?
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THIS

stupid to give them both to him. I love Bale and all and thought he deserved at least one of the awards. His karate kick goal was hilarious though
 
beans718 said:
Dont know how i feel about Bale winning both PFA and young player of the yr.. makes me think suarez would have won had it not been for the bite
laugh.gif
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if a player like Suarez won, then i think i Would OFFICIALLY lose all hope for the future of this sport.
 
While I agree some awards are given to people not often the most deserving, I can't think of another player more deserving for both then Bale. He's been electrifying to watch all season. Even my 9 year old get's excited whenever he steps onto the pitch (watching on tv) & that excitement didn't exist for him while watching Suarez or Van Persie. Cheers to Bale. I just hope he can stay at Tottenham. I'd like to see that team develop into a great side.
 
Mastamind89 said:
Talk about a strike, this is vicious
http://blog.foxsoccer.com/post/49027399913/chelsea-fans-keep-your-eye-on-this-kid-blues
Any Chelsea fans following any of the youth players? Any players to look out for?
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Man that's funny. My co-worker just sent me this vid too. It's amazing how fast stuff get's around "the internets". Here's a better vid quality but you have to deal with the Arabic announcer.... Isn't Watford the club that kid that interviewed Mila Kunis & Robert Downey Jr? :lol:
 
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Massive performance from Villa here.... 4-1 in the 59th min

Benteke must have just sealed his fate to another bigger club. Two quick goals...
 
Sessegnon red card smh


Benteke with the hatric.... 5-1

Tis will boost villa big time if relegation goes down to goal difference...
 
Mastamind89 said:
Talk about a strike, this is vicious
http://blog.foxsoccer.com/post/49027399913/chelsea-fans-keep-your-eye-on-this-kid-blues
Any Chelsea fans following any of the youth players? Any players to look out for?
Click to expand...

Just got done watching Chelsea vs Norwich City U18S FA Youth Cup final actually.

Chelsea dominated but gave a way a cheap penalty in the 4th minute of ET. :smh:

Ake already has a couple appearances for the 1st team and is def a name to remember for the future.

Islam Feruz as well, kid is a beast at striker. Leads the youth league in goals.

Chelsea has a couple other young guys on loan like Chalobah, Josh McEachran, Lucas Piazon who are good and could move up to the 1st team in a couple years
 
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Fear The Ibis said:
Mastamind89 said:
Talk about a strike, this is vicious
http://blog.foxsoccer.com/post/49027399913/chelsea-fans-keep-your-eye-on-this-kid-blues
Any Chelsea fans following any of the youth players? Any players to look out for?
Click to expand...

Just got done watching Chelsea vs Norwich City U18S FA Youth Cup final actually.

Chelsea dominated but gave a way a cheap penalty in the 4th minute of ET. :smh:

Ake already has a couple appearances for the 1st team and is def a name to remember for the future.

Islam Feruz as well, kid is a beast at striker. Leads the youth league in goals.

Chelsea has a couple other young guys on loan like Chalobah, Josh McEachran, Lucas Piazon who are good and could move up to the 1st team in a couple years
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing your insight/observations in Chelsea's talented youth but you know you dont believe that last bit. :lol:
 
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Don't know if this is just a baseless rumor but Piers Morgan just tweeted about a report claiming Arsene is gonna step down and move to PSG at the end of the yr...would be really interesting to see what we do if that happens but I'm doubting how true that is
 
Wow at that Torres gif

Lmao I thought it was gonna go right how did he shank it like that :lol:
 
trunks206 said:
Fear The Ibis said:
Mastamind89 said:
Talk about a strike, this is vicious
http://blog.foxsoccer.com/post/49027399913/chelsea-fans-keep-your-eye-on-this-kid-blues
Any Chelsea fans following any of the youth players? Any players to look out for?
Click to expand...

Just got done watching Chelsea vs Norwich City U18S FA Youth Cup final actually.

Chelsea dominated but gave a way a cheap penalty in the 4th minute of ET. :smh:

Ake already has a couple appearances for the 1st team and is def a name to remember for the future.

Islam Feruz as well, kid is a beast at striker. Leads the youth league in goals.

Chelsea has a couple other young guys on loan like Chalobah, Josh McEachran, Lucas Piazon who are good and could move up to the 1st team in a couple years
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing your insight/observations in Chelsea's talented youth but you know you dont believe that last bit. :lol:
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Nah. Chalobah will def be in the 1st team within the next 2 years or so. Kid is the goods. Piazon is on loan at Malaga and doing well and he's only 18 so he has a chance to, we'll see.

I'm not as high on McEachran but other Chelsea fans seem to think he's Chelsea's next Joe Cole
 
I dvr'd the Liverpool - Newcastle match & finally got to watch it. Coutinho is really impressing me but it looks like Rodgers is trying to temper expectations.

http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/85/e...iverpool-against-placing-high-expectations-on


Rodgers warns Liverpool against placing high expectations on Coutinho
By Arthur Virgo
Apr 29, 2013 9:34:00 AM


The Reds' manager believes too often young players suffer from the burden of expectation, but praises the Brazilian's impressive display in Saturday's 6-0 away win at Newcastle.

Brendan Rodgers insists Liverpool should not put pressure on young attacker Philippe Coutinho following his excellent performance in the Reds’ 6-0 away win over Newcastle on Saturday.

The Brazilian playmaker moved to Anfield in January for a fee of 8.5 million pounds from Inter Milan and has since become a regular in the first team, scoring two goals in his nine starts.

Rodgers, however, is determined to avert pressure and expectation away from his young star, though conceded that Coutinho had made a brilliant start to life in the Premier League.

"We build up players in the country and put them on a pedestal and then quickly nail them down," Rodgers told the club's official website. "He's had an outstanding performance and people can see why we brought him in. He's 20 years of age and fits the culture of what we're trying to do here.

"He's technically strong and he's a very humble boy. He works hard, you can see the effort in his game, the pressure, the intensity, so he fits in really well, but there's a long way to go. If you look at the stats you'll see I haven't eased him in gently. He's played nearly every game."

Coutinho was central to his side’s attacking threat at St James’ Park in the absence of Luis Suarez, setting up Daniel Sturridge for Liverpool’s third goal with a particularly impressive through ball.

"It was a wonderful demonstration of what we're trying to do here. Offensively, we passed the ball very well first and foremost and we scored six goals, but the balance in our game was good too," Rodgers explained.

"There was organization, educated pressure on the ball and when the chances came we were ruthless. It was an outstanding performance. To go there and beat Newcastle 6-0 when you know the home team really needs the victory, I think it tells you more about our performance. The players were outstanding."
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Great post on Kloop....

http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/espnfcunited/id/5343?cc=5901


Apr 29 5:49
PM EDTMore to Klopp than meets the eye
Posted by Alima Hotakie

Q: What would be the most horrible form of training that you could imagine for your players?

A: A survival camp in the wilderness. Five days in tents with the rain, without food and all about self-sufficiency. If I had the time I would do it. That would be phenomenal. I don't want to make a show out of it. It has to be real and hard to accomplish. Whoever survives such a thing, can achieve anything.

It was a jarring answer to an intriguing question posed by Bild yet one senses that if Juergen Klopp had the power, he'd also introduce timeouts into football.

It's hard to take the Borussia Dortmund coach seriously if one were to judge him solely on his appearance: unkempt hair, unshaven face and an expression normally signifying bewilderment. Oh, not to mention his preference for track pants and the "Poehler" baseball cap rather than suits.

But after topping the group of death with BvB, winning in dramatic comeback fashion against Malaga in the Champions League quarterfinal and hammering Real Madrid in the first leg of the semis, it's obvious that his appearance doesn't matter.

Klopp's brand of football has mesmerized audiences in the Bundesliga for the past five years and is now catching admiration and respect on a global level. His coaching philosophy and tactics are quite distinct; his team plays a high-tempo, high-pressure, quick pass and transition game. The victories notched against Los Blancos, both in the semifinals and in the group stage, largely depended on Klopp's tactical ingenuity.

While most experts believed the key to winning against Madrid was to contain Cristiano Ronaldo, the German coach told the Spanish paper El Pais he directed his attention away from the striker and focused on nullifying the creative abilities of Xabi Alonso instead.

"We knew where they would send their passes, how they look for Cristiano. Our plan was to take Xabi out of the game. Because if Alonso can play as he wants it is impossible to defend against Madrid."

So he deployed Mario Goetze to keep an extra eye on Alonso, which forced the Spain international to drop deeper into his own half and therefore hampered his ability to launch long, diagonal passes out to his forwards.

"If you block Xabi, you make it so Pepe has the ball. That is a big difference."

Even against Malaga in the return leg of the quarterfinals, the BvB coach's tactical changes to use Felipe Santana and late substitute Mats Hummels as strikers in the dying minutes of the game miraculously paid off, speaking only further to his clever impromptu skills.

Behind the stubble and the impish grin, Klopp's approach yielded back-to-back Bundesliga titles for Dortmund and a 5-2 humiliation of Bayern Munich in last year's DFB-Pokal final. In fact, it wasn't until this year's German Cup quarterfinals that Bayern finally ended its losing streak against the Ruhr side (with the exception of the Super Cup).

When "Kloppo" took the reigns at Dortmund in 2008, he promised his supporters exciting football and introduced a sense of obligation toward the fans that's unheard of at other clubs. He gave them his vocabulary word to play with: Vollgasveranstaltungen. That's entertaining football played with soul and passion.

On a tactical level, it's a concept that entails different aspects. In addition to the high speed at which Dortmund plays, the idea is to disorganize the opponent. This is anchored in his use of "gegenpressing" (counter-pressing), referring to his team's ability to harass high up the pitch in order to immediately recover the ball after losing it.

At its core, Klopp relies on exploiting a momentary mental weakness in his opponents.

"The most convenient moment to win back the ball is directly after losing it. The opposition must first orient themselves, look as to where they can pass the ball," he told the local newspaper Ruhr Nachrichten.

Of course another benefit of gegenpressing is the more obvious one of cutting the distance to the opponent's net. It also allows Dortmund to control the pace of a game or slow it down when necessary.

Too add to that control is the tightness of Klopp's favorite formation, and those who have observed Dortmund in action know how compact the team plays. In an interview with 11 Freunde, Klopp said, "his 4-2-3-1 system has to remain so compact that there are only a maximum of 34 steps from Robert Lewandowski to Hummels." This meticulous spacing is what makes the formation so hard to beat, he said.

Behind the scenes, Klopp is just as influential in preparing the psychological dimension of his team. Although he denies mastering the art of motivation, many believe his optimism and positive attitude have contributed to his team's accomplishments.

"We approach every game positively, that the opponent is beatable," Klopp noted in a television interview with Sky Sports.

He added that it's only logical to focus on one game at a time, on the now rather than the past or future. While the 45-year old naturally flourishes in an inspirational role, he isn't the most enthusiastic supporter of statistics, once telling Der Tagesspiegel that he's more concerned with adaptation and how his team reacts to particular situations.

"These insights (stats) don’t tell me much. Because I must devise a plan based on the abilities of my players and not on the law of statistics."

But the few stats he is concerned with are speed, stamina, time for the body to regenerate and any information that tells him more about the players' health in order to avoid risks. Stamina, in particular, draws his curiosity. Dortmund's fitness level is one of the best in Europe despite lacking the depth on the bench as rivals Bayern. The ability to not tire easily is vital because it directly improves his players' concentration.

"Stamina cannot be practiced with the ball but with running, running and running. And the better the stamina, the more players can concentrate on their roles ... at our level you have to be exceptionally trained so that you can stay awake mentally."

But optimal mileage is just as imperative. For the German coach, the ability to think fast and run efficiently are two important components. While he agrees with Barca's Xavi in that it's important to know what to do with the ball before even receiving it, optimal mileage is just as imperative. For that reason he analyzes his team's wins to decipher which victories were run with lower and higher distances as a difference in 18-22 km is enough to determine if his players ran appropriately or wastefully.

Despite this study, his best analysis still remains re-watching games. In fact, that's how Klopp taught himself.

"I know it’s very old fashioned. Tape in, forward and rewind, forward and rewind, a thousand times. I’d spent five or six hours on a 90-minute game. I haven’t been able to do it any faster. But to be clear: This was my education, no book or seminars or anything from renowned trainers. Ten games a week and I usually started before breakfast."

Though Dortmund have lost some ground to Bayern this season, Klopp's deceptive, meticulous managerial style should keep Die Schwarzgelben amid the European elite regardless of which players come and go. Both Nuri Sahin and Shinji Kagawa were replaced smoothly by FC Nuremberg's Ilkay Guendogan and Borussia Moenchengladbach's Marco Reus respectively, though the loss of Goetze to Bayern might be a tougher sell. Not that you'd bet against Kloppo, of course.

Regardless of what happens to Dortmund in the Champions League and beyond, the scruffy scamp from Stuttgart has caught our attention, captured our imagination and earned our respect.
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