Brand new modern fitba 2018-19 thread!! SEE YOU!!

At least he didn't leave a floater.

"Aye. It does nae work."

 

With strachan and his fetish for playing his best players on the wrong side of the pitch gone, lets see where McLiesh plays tierney. Obv you have to fit both him and Robertson in and tierney is way more versatile so it won't be left back but it's got to be left wing and not right back, surely

Not that I actually care. Hopefully he drops every Celtic player forever

 

Does anybody actually understand this UEFA nations league pish?

 

No but then again, Ah once forgot hoo tae spell the word ‘why’.

 

Yeah I do.

 

UEFA just ruins football

The EC, CWC, UEFA Cup was brilliant... it gave you THREE prestigious competitions every year... The distance between the top prize (EC) and the third best prize (UC) was a modest river, really... all three were massive prizes... now you have one big prize and a prize so prestigious that wealthy clubs barely even try to win it when they end up in it (via failure) ... the distance between the two trophies is bigger than the Pacific Ocean... Domestic Cups become more and more minor

Now they've introduced this nonsense FOR NO REASON and all it does is lessen the drama of the European Championships

 

Any chance you can explain it to me? I've been on the BBC website today to try and work it out and can't fathom how it becomes a UEFA qualifier.

MTF

 

The only country which doesn't take the UEFA Cup seriously is England. The word got out about ten years ago that 'trying to win the UEFA Cup risked teams being relegated' (a statistical myth) and that the difference in prize money between winning the UEFA Cup and finishing two places higher in the English money league is negligible (not far off the choof). That said, English sides have started to take it seriously since they gave the winner a CL places: Man Utd won it a couple of years back and Arsenal only lost to Atleti (who also took it very seriously and won it) in the semi-finals last year.

I've said a zillion times that the FA Cup would be immediately restored in importance if the FA had the balls to take away the prize for finishing third runner-up in the money league and gave the CL qualifier place to the FA Cup 'Champion' instead (to be returned to the third runner-up if the winner qualifies via the money league). The UEFA Cup experiment is sort of validating this IMO.

MTF

 

You mean the Europa League, I assume

Any way you slice it, it pales in comparison to the prestige that was formerly attached to the CWC and the old UEFA Cup ...

 

Aye, the UEFA Cup meant a lot more even ten years back than the Europa League does now. It's as much an issue of diluting the competitors than the money (although the latter certainly helped speed up the process). When the UEFA Cup was full of 2nd and 3rd place teams, it was legitimately strong across the board and just qualifying for it meant you were a very good side. Now that pretty much all of the top fifteen or so club sides are automatic shoe-ins for the European moneyballs league, it's mainly made up of former giants on the downslide, current giants who have failed and teams from Moldova no cunt has ever heard of.

MTF

 

To be fair I don't know how it goes in to a Euro qualifier, am assuming the winner of the whole thing gets a berth, but the format itself isn't too complicated.

So you have four divisions - A, B, C and D. A you have Germany, Spain etc, D you have Luxembourg, Gibraltar and the like. Division A has 12 sides which are split into four groups of 3. England's group contains Spain and Croatia, everybody plays home and away. The top team goes into the finals tournament, the middle team stays in the division and the 3rd place team gets relegated to the division below. For the teams in the lower divisions it's the same except the top teams get promoted instead of playing in a finals tournament.

 

Exactly... used to be a great trophy with top teams, just a notch under the other two

 

I get your point but at least this new international competition gets rid of the pointless friendlies which just end up interrupting a league season. In theory I think it's a good idea, will see how it goes I guess, but I'd rather England were playing top quality sides regularly in a competitive format than the usual dross like Azerbaijan in qualifiers.

 

You just know they'll invent a way to ruin it if it turns out to be good

 

I think it's one of these things where my brain just goes on strike and doesn't want to understand it. What's it for? In parallel to normal qualifiers? Why the fuck?

 

Aye I kinda got that much but I guess my real question is.....why? So we can have two European champions at once? Fuck

 

I do agree they need to explain how it's integrated into the qualification process, but I think in theory it could work.

 

Yeah that's a fair point.

I dunno really, I guess I'm just curious about it, seems like an interesting concept.

 

The main thing that grieves me here: I'm gonna have to explain this shit to my grandad every time there's a Scotland game

 

This times a million

 

So - Two European Champs multiplied ba one million? Two million! Madness.

 

I remember going to see NUFC play Monaco in the 1/4 final of the UEFA Cup in 1997. We had that side, although Shearer and Sir Les were injured so we 'only' had Asprilla and Lord Beardsley up top instead, against a side with a young Terry Henry, Manu Petit, Sonny Anderson, Enzo Schifo, Fabien Barthez in net...they outclassed us four zip on aggregate. I didn't think it was possible to undress that NUFC side like they did. We finished second in the PL that season - it was the same side that beat Man Utd five nil (minus Shearer and Sir Les).

That's how strong the UEFA Cup used to be.

MTF

 

England v Spain: Grassroots coaching to blame for lack of English flair - Chris Waddle

Waddle basically being paid to say exactly what I've been saying for something like ten fucking years.

MTF

 

Two men... Charles Hughes and a lesser known chap called Charles Reep are the biggest culprits in the retardation of English coaching

 

Scotland and Ireland both spanked this weekend. One by Wales and another by a team best known for a shocking loss to Wales.

 

I like this

 

Lovely stuff - as original as can be. A worthwhile watch, like.

 

Another fine performance by Ingerland's non-footballers tonight.

MTF

 

This new format is not all bad, imo.

Usually teams have played friendly matches at this point. Now, there is sort of a reason to play these games, which might make them a bit more interesting.

The regular qualifications are still the main way to get to the Euro Championships. This league format makes it possible for four teams to get through without passing the actual qualifications, like if they play well but they happen to be in a very difficult group.

If Spain, for example, wins this league and also wins its qualifications, they go through because of the real qualifiers, and their place in this league's play offs will be given to the next team.

Also, because of this format, two crap teams are getting through but since there will be 20 teams in next Euros, they won't cause that much harm

 

Does Finland's demolition of the 1954 World Cup finalists get them into the tournament automatically?