SEE YOU! A brand spanking new modern fitba thread 2022/23

Here ya are, lads! A new one!

 

Fuckin Paramount+ isn't showing any SPL games until Hibs vs Hearts next weekend.

Probably within a week a replay of this weekend's Sheltic game will be available.

 

Speak to Wiser he seems to have access to all of this and then some.

First major game is this weekend. Liverpool Vs City in the Charity Shield. That's on terrestrial aka FREE TV in the UK.

 

It's not a huge deal. Between about 3 streaming services, I have access to most games in most leagues.

SPL definitely doesn't get much love with coverage over here.

 

I can imagine,it is, in British terms, a relative sideshow with some occasional real excitement and interest.

In many regards it punches above its weight.....there can't be many leagues of a country with a population of 5m or so who generate the same energy.

Take Sweden, population of about 8m....no real excitement. They used to have teams like Malmö (European Cup Finalists once upon a time) and FK Gothenburg in the 1990s.

Today? Nothing doing. Same with Denmark and even Belgium which has large centers of population.

Even Holland hasn't produced winners since 1995 in Europe .... In the intervening period Scottish clubs (and we know who...) have made 3 European finals and beaten teams like Barcelona, AC Milan, Liverpool, etc.

The big knock against Scotland is "it's only 2 sides" but West Ham, Leicester both failed to proceed further than Rangers in Europe last season. Both have more money, richer owners.

 

ESPN actually offers all games from the Belgium league. I follow that league pretty well.

But your point is well taken.

 

Belgium used to have very respected sides like Bruges, Liege, Anderlecht. They've produced great players.....but the old industrial based of those towns is gone and the players like DeBruyne or Kompany or Hazard just get very quickly siphoned off. 30, 40 years ago they'd be playing in Belgium for those teams

Today, Celtic are as big as anything coming out of Belgium....probably I'd fancy Celtic to beat Anderlecht or Bruges.

Last time I saw a good Liege side was in 2008 when they absolutely went toe to toe with Liverpool over 2 legs in a playoff for Europe.

But that Liege side was a total sleeper outfit full of guys who went on to predictably leave the club for big big money at one point or another.

 

The guy who scored for Liverpool was the epitome of the jobbing Dutch player who would have been born and died in Feynoord, a gritty fishing town, 30 odd years ago.

Premier League football comes along and suddenly there is a job (and money,lots of money) for an average footballer with a physique like a light-heavyweight who can run run run all day.

 

Anderlecht had a very good team in the early 2000's. Leeds beat them surprisingly easily when they went on that crazy run to the Champions League semis and they declined rapidly after that.

 

20 years ago now.

David O' Leary and his "diss an advenjer" routine

 

It was a mental run. I remember watching their first match of the tournament when they lost 4-0 to Barcelona at the Nou Camp, they looked so far out of their depth I wondered if they were even going to get a point. Then they beat Milan in the next match when Dida dropped Bowyers shot over the line in the last minute and they never looked back.

 

They looked back when they finished 4th, got relegated and sold their players to United and disappeared for 20 years

O'Leary did a year with Villa after that, split acrimoniously and never managed again.

I miss those short few years before the financial crash.

 

I don't know how the fuck Barcelona keeps signing 50 million euro players. I thought they were broke.

 

50 million euros is peanuts these days.

Its about 16 Roubles

 

They sold something like 15-25% of their TV rights for many years to come. I'm sure a lot of "creative" accounting is going on but i guess it's enough to get them by FFP and La Liga rules. (for now)

 

I hope it comes back to bite them at some point, even more so the oil cunt clubs but it never does.

 

"modern monetary theory"

In the meantime authorities are trying to throw Shakira in jail for 8 years for not paying her taxes.

 

The way oil prices are right now

 

I did a few bridges and push ups last night in addition to a 2km jog in the heat..no Biggie..woke up today feeling rank and had a few beef stocks. Still no improvement so I had some cheap steaks (Uruguayan) and feel a bit better.

Now, important business today at Wembley.

 

I forget which arab oil cunt said it but he was asked how his club affords to spend 100 million on one player. His answer was that they raise the oil prices and recoup it.

 

It's big club....and we ain't in it

 

Pounding dance music, Muppets leaping about, great ATMOSPHERE.....

 

Cunts, eh? (Couldn't resist, sorry).

MTF

 

Seriously, the money is now so massive that a guy with an extra £40bn has no actual advantage.....if you've got no money, you're done..if you've got £40bn, you're in with a shout, but by £100bn you're no better off and it's down to tactics and signings.

 

That's probably true, but only to a point. NUFC are so far behind now that it will take at least five years just to put in place an infrastructure that allows them to challenge. But the sheer money behind them makes that challenge inevitable. There literally is only one club in the world with £100b behind them. That's NUFC.

Right now FFP hamstrings them. If FFP didn't exist, you'd see an LIV golf-style race to the forefront. But they can't do that and they know that their every move is being watched - the first hint of being out of line and they'll get fucked. So it's a long game instead.

MTF

 

Thought LFC were impressive today.

MTF

 

We'll see. We know they can match City. Fag paper between them. Long old season.

 

Additionally, there's a recent spike in Anti Saudi sentiment brought about as much by Trump, ironically, as anyone else. Basically only Putin is lower than the Saudis now on the international pecking order of holiness.

It's all bullshit......it's all a fickle sham. Abramovitch had 20 years of fun and suddenly wasn't wanted around anymore.

 

Aye, the Saudis are total cunts, but are currently viewed as a necessary evil. That could easily change. It did with Putin.

MTF