The Football News Thread 2023/24

[Alan]

Alright, you snobby fuckers.

 

[Quirkafleeg]

No return for Mikey Stowell, he's joined Robbie Keane as a coach at Maccabi Tel Avi.

 

[Derby Wolf]

Leander's brother.

Shame for him.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1684306574406197248

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

David Silva has retired, what a player. A genuine privilege to watch in person.

Edit: Did his ACL in pre-season, so has called it a day. What a shame. He was key to Real Sociedad qualifying for the CL.

 

[Derby Wolf]

City record

436 games
77 goals
141 assists

Unreal.

 

[b3h]

Wow, didn't realise he played that many!

 

[machin05]

One of my all time favourite Premier League players

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

One of my all time favourite Premier League players

They had the money to do it of course but City really nailed a lot of their recruitment early on post-takeover.

Kompany
Zabaleta
Silva
Agüero

Well over 1,000 PL appearances between them

 

[Johnny75]

Inter Club d'Escaldes 2-1 Hibernian

Inter Club are Andorran.

That's a new low for Scottish football.

 

[jd1981]

Inter Club d'Escaldes 2-1 Hibernian

Inter Club are Andorran.

That's a new low for Scottish football.

outside the old firm Scottish are a disaster in Europe Motherwell, Kilmarnock now Hibernian have all lost to teams from Ireland, Wales and Andorra.
In recent years, all leagues the SPFL would say they’re stronger than.

 

[Kenny]

UK and Ireland should get the Euro's in 2028. Turkey have pulled out of the running and are putting in a joint bid with Italy for the 2032 comp

 

[jd1981]

Unopposed bid now so will be a formality

 

[Kenny]

Half expecting a late bid from Saudi Arabia to host them

 

[White Wolf]

Some of these joint bids get on my nerves, fair enough a British Isles one and some of the older ones like Poland/Ukraine, Austria/Switzerland, but... Italy and Turkey? Really? Both countries have the infrastructure to be able to host one in their own right, they're not even nearby. No consideration for people who might attend them (like they ever do).

I'd much rather go back to 16 teams for Euros and 32 for a World Cup, not just for quality but so it's much more reasonable for hosting. That way you won't see joke shop bids like Portugal/Spain/Ukraine or Saudi/Greece/Egypt. Won't ever happen, course.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

The last two Euros have been pretty shit. Stupid 24 team format rewarding failure and encouraging negative football (also meaning that poor teams go far and then give a decent team a walkover in the latter stages, which should never happen), with the added kicker of Covid restrictions and playing the games all over Europe last time so it didn't even feel like a tournament (thanks Platini).

Wrecked an absolutely perfect format for no reason.

 

[Del Woppio]

I quite like the idea of a big home tournament tbh, not from a sporting perspective but just means I should be able to take til to a game even if it's Lichtenstein vs San Marino. I didn't get to any in Euro 96 because my dad is a tight fecker

 

[White Wolf]

The last two Euros have been pretty shit. Stupid 24 team format rewarding failure and encouraging negative football (also meaning that poor teams go far and then give a decent team a walkover in the latter stages, which should never happen), with the added kicker of Covid restrictions and playing the games all over Europe last time so it didn't even feel like a tournament (thanks Platini).

Wrecked an absolutely perfect format for no reason.

There's a pretty obvious reason - more games, more money. FIFA and UEFA especially need the bigger countries to qualify so there are more viewers too. Incidents like the US failing to qualify in 2018 inevitably means there is reduced interest over there, meanwhile big Asian countries such as China/India/Indonesia/Vietnam are terrible.

Qualifying for the Euros is easy if you're even remotely good, some of the shit that has qualified in the last couple is testament to that. World Cup qualifiers in Europe have still been competitive enough although with more places that will get easier as well. Wonder if we will ever see big nations failing to qualify in the future. Same applies to the Champions League and their legacy places.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Ah, I mean no good sporting reason of course

24 team tournaments are a terrible idea, they don't work. Portugal winning Euro 2016 after 0 wins in the group FFS.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Side issue though: does that mean they'd have five teams qualify automatically as hosts? Because that would be very weird.

 

[BillyDee]

Only the country hosting the final should get automatic qualification IMO.